17 pages • 34 minutes read
Derek WalcottMidsummer XXVII
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1984A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
American Industrialization Versus the Natural World
St. Thomas is an island in the Caribbean covered in lush foliage and known for its abundance of natural elements, such as fruit-bearing trees, birds, animals, and aquatic life. Yet the presence of Americans and American interests changes the landscape so that it is more industrialized. The planes, plane hangars, fences, etc. displace some of the natural world both in the literal island and in the poem. The speaker sets up this dichotomy in the first lines: “that chain-link fence dividing the absent roars / of the beach from the empty ball park” (Lines 2-3).
In the next lines, he notes “an early pelican / coast[ing], with its engine off” (Lines 5-6) in a “gray, metal light” (Line 5). The light he describes is presumably the light of early morning or evening, yet it is described in terms of an industrialized world, as being “metal” (Line 5) rather than coming from the sun. The pelican is also transformed from a bird into something mechanical that runs on an engine. These metaphors demonstrate that the natural world is being colonized by the industrial world, much the way the people of the island are being colonized by Europeans and European-descended Americans.
Later, the speaker comments more directly on industrialization, writing:
[A]nd the leaves have green cards. Bulldozers jerk
and gouge out a hill, but we all know that the dust
is industrial and must be suffered. Soon—
the sea’s corrugations are sheets of zinc
soldered by the sun’s steady acetylene (Lines 17-21).
The vocabulary in these lines, “jerk” (Line 17), “gouge” (Line 18), and “suffered” (19), suggest the bulldozers are doing damage to the hill and the surrounding environment. Those in the vicinity must “suffer” dust because it is in service to industrialization. The ones who use the bulldozer, or profit from the development of the land, have sway over the natural world, making the general population believe that industrialization is worth the cost to the beauty of the island. These choices of language demonstrate that the ideals of American capitalism and industrialism are taking over the island and the Indigenous population’s beliefs as much as the machinery is taking over the natural world.
The Dehumanizing Effects of Colonization
The poem takes place on St. Thomas, an island in the Antilles, yet the speaker begins with noting the things that are “quietly American” (Line 1). This sets up the main conflict of the poem, which is the speaker’s discomfort with the encroachment of American culture on the island and on his own psyche.
The speaker notes chain link fences dividing the island, demarcating the presence of a baseball field and villas, which are constructed presumably for tourists. He now views the natural world in terms of the industrialized world: The sea is corrugated “zinc” (Line 20); the “pelican” has an “engine” (Lines 5-6).
Though the poem takes place on St. Thomas, the speaker refers to the “natives” (Line 13) as “illegal immigrants from unlucky islands” (Line 14). He is not speaking literally, because the so-called “illegal immigrants” (Line 14) are on their own island, where they are not immigrants but native-born citizens. However, in the eyes of the wealthy Americans in the villas, the real “native” people are “immigrants” because they would be considered as such on the mainland. This is what colonization does and what colonizers do. They appropriate the land of another culture and people as their own, taking full psychological ownership of someone else’s land and treating the true citizens as immigrants with fewer rights. The speaker demonstrates the way the Americans have taken over the island and not only displaced the original inhabitants but also taken over their status as citizens, making them immigrants in their own land.
In America, immigrants face challenges finding work if they do not have authorization. Ergo, the Indigenous people on the island “envy the smallest polyp its right to work. / Here the wetback crab and the mollusc are citizens, / and the leaves have green cards” (Lines 15-17). These metaphors point to the fact that nature allows all animals, even the smallest creatures, the “right” (Line 15) to work and to belong. Ironically, the use of the term “green card” (Line 17), along with “wetback crab” (Line 16)—“wetback” being a derogatory term for Mexican people who live in the US without authorization—could also be interpreted to mean that even a large amount of the wildlife and foliage are not actually native to the island, and perhaps have been brought in from Mexico and other areas to bolster the island’s food and tourism industries.
Crabs, molluscs, and polyps all contribute to the functioning of the ecosystem on the island, each providing a service to the rest of the landscape. They do not need permission. The colonizers also benefit from the work these animals do in the sense that they get to enjoy the beauty and abundant resources of the island. It is only the human beings, the native-born citizens, who get shut out from being a part of the island. This demonstrates the dehumanizing way colonialism treats Indigenous people, making them less equal than even the animals.
Seductive Quality of American Capitalism and Industrialism
Many people from the Caribbean and other regions migrate to the United States for economic opportunities, among other things. The American objects in the poem are characterized as being positive yet almost naive: The Cessnas, American planes, are personified as being “eager” to fly (Line 8), and the flag at the post office makes a “starry” pattern (Line 25). Presumably, industry must be beneficial, or why else would people “suffer” the bulldozers to dig into the hills?
Yet the speaker fears what he sees happening to St. Thomas. Walcott’s language suggests that he does not approve of the damage that industrialization is doing to the natural world. The sea, even when it is pink with sunlight, seems as cold as the ocean in Maine (Line 7). The Cessnas remind him that America is a country that goes to war, that builds things that are “functional” and “brown,” (Line 7), but more significantly, America is a country that occupies. It is an empire, which means it builds more and more of itself, often displacing and degrading others, wiping out their culture in the process.
The speaker says that his own “corpuscles” are changing (Line 24). Unlike seeing the post office change, this example is very personal. It demonstrates the way people form their identities in connection with their culture. Since the culture around him is shifting, the speaker feels his own body is subsequently shifting. It is something that he cannot control, and it feels inevitable. By the end of the poem, the speaker says that the sand is already in the process of changing “fealty” (Line 26), or loyalty, under his own feet. The speaker is close to the changes around him but not in control of them. This speaks to a concern that other writers of the Diaspora and Postcolonial movements explore, which is the way that shifting cultural and political movements change the identities of individuals. This is the downside to the seeming glitter of American culture and its takeover of the island.
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