Now/Here is an Island: Navigating Heterotopias in the Poetry of Derek Walcott

Abstract

This thesis explores the heterotopian nature of Derek Walcott’s island and “other” places. The figure of the island refers to Walcott’s island home of Saint Lucia and the Caribbean islands that share a similar history with Saint Lucia. Heterotopias, according to Foucault, are “effectively enacted utopias”,places that are at once both “real” and “unreal” and can simultaneously represent, contest and invert the societies which they reside in (“Other Spaces” 24). Walcott’s places are heterotopias in a Foucauldian sense because they are spaces layered with multiple —and often contradictory or ambivalent —dimensions of narratives, chronologies, and histories. Through his poetry, Walcott first navigates, then recuperates the conflicting history within the heterotopian space of the island. The experience of engaging with these heterotopias, however, also allows Walcott to reflect, re-vision, and re-cognise the self. Investigating Walcott’s depiction of space in his poetry invariably opens up possibilities to investigate Walcott’s aesthetic and ethos.