English 391

Silent Voice: How the Male Narratior Silences the Females of  Walcott’s Omeros

Although in her article, Margot Norris is referring to The Dead, her ideas about the male narrator can be applied to a number of books that we have read this semester.  One novel where her theories are very prevalent is Omeros by Derek Walcott.  In Omeros, we meet a female character names Helen, but we also get to meet an island, that is given feminist qualities, and also shares the name Helen.  Both of these “characters” are seen through a male perspective, and their story therefore is a male perception. 

            Norris states that “The Dead must therefore be read not as one text but as two texts: a ‘loud’ or audible male narration challenged and disrupted by a ‘silent’ or discounted female countertext that does not, in the end, succeed in making itself heard” (Norris 192).  Walcott also has two texts within his epic poem.  He has his voice, and the silent voice of his female characters.  The first of the two female characters that this essay will explore is the Island of St. Lucia.  

            St Lucia is personified throughout this whole novel.  Walcott refers to the island as Helen; St Lucia is often called Helen of the West because she was fought over by both Britain and France.  Walcott often writes how St. Lucia is losing her natural beauty and charm and is being corrupted by commercialism and tourism.  We see this in the passage:

               This island of St. Lucia, quittez mon dire z’autres!

      Let me tell you is heading for unqualified

disaster,  ces manailles-la, pas blague, I am not

Joking.  Every vote is your ticket, your free ride

On the Titanic: a cruse back to slavery

In liners like hotels you cannot sit inside

Except as waiters, maids.  This chicanery!

Like that man hopping there, St Lucia look healthy

With bananas and tourists, but her soul crying (Walcott 107)

Walcott is discussing how industrialization is bad for St Lucia and that it will take away her soul.  This is his perspective as a male.  What one does not see is St. Lucia’s voice.  Although it is an island, according to Walcott’s personification, Helen, the island, soul is crying.  Perhaps what Walcott fails to see is that by allowing tourism onto St. Lucia, it gives her more wealth and prestige.  She is able to provide her people with more employment and opportunities by allowing tourism to use her.  She may be selling herself, but it is a choice she is proud to make.  Yes, she has bananas and natural beauty that can provide a sufficient live for her inhabitants, but by allowing tourism and commercialism, she is bridging the gap between her people and the Eastern world.  She is allowing them to be influenced by one another.  She is allowing her children to have access to a better education, so they can have the opportunities to succeed in ways that would not be possible without tourism and commercialism. 

We see Walcott is troubled by the tourism and commercialism that is corrupting Helen’s soul.  We see again in the passage “for the land that was lost, a woman who was gone” (Walcott 175).  The woman that Walcott once knew is gone, and there is now a different woman.  A woman who is finding new ways to provide for herself, who is breaking away from tradition and moving towards a more modern world.  This voice, the voice of the Helen of the West is not seen within “loud” text of this poem.  One has to look beyond the surface to see that she has a voice and an opinion about what is happening to her, and that it isn’t the same as Walcott’s. 

            Helen, the character, also has two texts.  We are given the picture of a woman, who is very promiscuous and who often leaves her lovers for someone who is of better social status.  First, she leaves Achille for Hector, and then she has an affair with Plunkett.  All the reader is given about Helen is her hurtful or “unwomanly” actions.  We are never given her backstory. We are introduced to Helen by learning that she stripped off her costume at her waitress job after the customers became to grabby with her, that she is pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is and according to Maud “but the girl lies so much and she stole” (Walcott 29).  We never once, get to hear Helen’s thoughts or perspective about her situation.   We never get her history, or find out where her family is.  Helen, mirrors Helen of the West because two men are fighting to control her beauty and her wealth, fertility, and while she is desired for her natural beauty, she is criticized for allowing men to use it.  She  is supposed to hold on to the one thing that gives her power and opportunity, her beauty and her sexuality.  Her story is silenced within the text.

            Norris states that when a narrator is male, the female characters lose their voices.  This is because men cannot understand the feelings of women and often make their characters one sided.  The male narrator places expectations upon his female characters.  He wants them to either be virtuous, well behaved woman, or else they are considered wicked women.  The male narrator does not give female characters an opportunity to have both virtuous and wicked qualities.  The male narrator doesn’t allow his female characters an opportunity speak in their authentic voice, for the male narrator is incapable of sharing with his audience an authentic female perspective.

Works Cited 

Norris, Margot. “Not the Girl She Was at All: Women in “The Dead”.” Joyce, James. The Dead. Boston: Bedford Books , 1994. 190-205.

Walcott, Derek. Omeros. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990.