Through Loins and Coins: Derek Walcott's Weaving of the West Indian Federation

Myth, History, and the Idea of the Nation in Derek Walcott and V.S. Naipaul

“…Walcott, who thinks himself into the experience of characters in many ways dissimilar to himself, is more broadly concerned with the challenges presented to nationhood in the Caribbean; these constitute a negative kind of Caribbean commonality which nonetheless permit of resolution and ontological security to individuals who are prepared to make a leap of acceptance of their historically (if not ethnically) Creole identity (McCallum 2009:25). Naipaul is more concerned with the concrete details of his own island, and his writing offers less ontological security (Kraus 2005:88). Yet Walcott feels haunted by history more keenly than does Naipaul, and it is for this reason that he reaches for a sense of individual ontology that is independent of history.…”

“…As Kraus also shows, the Federation turned out to be just as mythical as El Dorado. No amount of fervent imagination would make it a reality in the minds of islanders who were separated by treacherous seas (in the days before accessible air travel), but who had in common the (valid) perception of the federal concept as imperial in origin (Kraus 2005:61).…”

“…There was no profound anti‐imperialist feeling; indeed, it was only our Britishness, our belonging to the British Empire, which gave us any identity. (Kraus 2005:90)Both Naipaul and Walcott felt excluded by the Black Power movement – the former as an Indian; the latter because (as he put it in his 1979 poem ‘The Schooner Flight’) ‘After the white man, the niggers didn't want me/when the power swing to their side […] I wasn’t black enough for their pride’ (Walcott 1986:350).…”

“…There was no profound anti‐imperialist feeling; indeed, it was only our Britishness, our belonging to the British Empire, which gave us any identity. (Kraus 2005:90)…”