Literary Analysis of "The Schooner's Flight"
In Derek Walcott’s “The Schooner Flight,” there are many interesting areas in which Walcott touches on. The one aspect that I will focus on is Walcott’s character Shabine and how the influence of Shabine in the passage resonates Walcott’s theme. Shabine is a loving, passionate, yet unhappy man who loves the sea and his wife and kids. However, his growing disappointment and unhappiness with society’s corruption and negative change forces him to leave his wife, children, and mistress in Trinidad and voyage out on the “Schooner Flight.”
My interpretation of Walcott’s theme in this poem was that the author is using his own life experiences to connect or sympathize with his character Shabine. I felt that Shabine was Walcott and that Walcott was Shabine, even though Walcott fictionalizes Shabine. Whether negative or positive, Walcott used the character of Shabine to express his own self.
A prime example of this is when Shabine leaves Trinidad via taxi and reflects how much he misses the way Trinidad used to be before all the corruption, war, and change. He does this by stating, “I look in the rearview and see a man
exactly like me, and the man was weeping for the houses, the street, that whole fucking island" (Walcott 1). By stating this, Walcott is identifying himself with the emotions, feelings, and disillusionment that Shabine possesses.
In conclusion, Shabine's roller coaster journey rivals that of the authors because this poem is essentially an autobiography. Due to the fact that there is a sense of narration on Walcott's end, the thesis can be states that Shabine's voyage away from the corruption and unhappiness to the unknown is equivalent to Walcott's own journey in life thus far into what is yet to be determined, or better known as the future.
Summary and Analysis of "The Poet's Fiction of Self"
"The Poet's Fiction of Self" by Edward Baugh points out very intriguing points of view that may or may not have been invited by the reader when reading a passage, in particular "The Schooner's Flight" by Derek Walcott. In this journal, Baugh unveils his interest in the fact that some authors represent themselves within their own work through fictitious characters. For example, Baugh suggests that Derek Walcott, the author of "The Schooner's Flight," uses the character Shabine as a reflection of himself. Baugh states, "Walcott's binding theme is Walcott, the pursuit and delineation of a fictive character based on an actual person named Derek Walcott" (Baugh 311). By stating this, Baugh emphasizes his point that Walcott is using the character Shabine to interrogate or examine himself.
To prove this point, Baugh uses another poem written by Walcott called "Another Life." Baugh emphasizes that in Walcott's original manuscript of "Another Life," Walcott struggled with using first, second, or third person, thus leading him to ultimately use fictitious characters to portray himself and believe that autobiographies are the means of good writing. Another sample that Baugh uses is he mentions Stephen Spender's "schizophrenia" idea that "an autobiographer is really writing a story of two lives: his life as it appers to himself....and his life as it appers from outside in the minds of others" (Baugh 313). This sample focuses on Walcott's use of "I" or "he" to speak about himself in third person or first person through a character in his work.
Finally, Baugh comes to the conclusion that Walcott reflects his past and present through his own literary work. By doing this, authors such as Walcott can gain a sense of relief from writing about their own experiences or even awareness to the audience of the trials and tribulations that the author had to endure being a particular race, ethnicity, age, or citizen of a particular community. Although Baugh was troubled by the ending of Walcott's "The Schooner Flight," Baugh acknowledges and respects Walcott's experiences and how he portrays it through his work and out to his audience.
In essence I agree with Baugh's thesis that Walcott uses fiction to portray himself. I agree with this because in autobiographies, authors do tend to use personal life experience in their writing to connect with their characters and give the audience a more in-depth view of the authors trials and tribulations. I feel that if I used this method in my writing, then I will obtain a deeper connection with my literary work and be able to write more thoroughly due to the fact that I can relate to what I am writing about. Baugh's "The Poet's Fiction of Self" and "The Schooner Flight" are major influences on what we are doing in class because both of these epic bodies of work obtain very powerful genre. These categories of text construct how their ideas are drawn out and grasp the audiences attention. Especially readings the dialect of the West Indies, analyzing the genre of "The Schooner Flight" was imperative to understand Baugh's thesis that Walcott resonated himself through his characters.
