Close Reading of “The Sea Is History” by Derek Walcott
Derek Walcott’s poem “The Sea Is History” explores the different narratives in history. Throughout the entire poem, Walcott inserts several biblical references as he tells the story of his ancestors being shipped off to be slaves. For example, he writes about how the beginning of the treacherous journey across the sea is Genesis, meaning the origin of something (9). The first shipment of slaves is what started the normalization of the practice of slavery. He juxtaposes the stories of the bible with the stories of his people to show that they have a history. While the biblical tales are not real events, the journey to the Caribbean is very much so and putting these two events side by side make the notion of even doubting the validity of what had happened during the journey of the slave trade ridiculous. However, as untrue these events are, these religious anecdotes are generally regarded as holy and important, which makes the narrative of Walcott’s culture sound just as significant. Walcott may have also put the two events together to show how divine and important they are, but they are not true events as there are no physical things to show for it.