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Creolizing Homer for the stage: Walcott's The Odyssey - Derek Walcott - The Odyssey: A Stage Version - Critical Essay
Twentieth Century Literature, Fall, 2001 by Robert D. Hamner
he symbolizes the possibility of the underdog emerging triumphantly in a world which pits the weak against the strong. His chicanery, therefore, had special significance to the slave who, in identifying with the Spiderman hero [Anansi], could turn the tables, so to speak, on the White oppressor. [34]
It has taken imagination for Eurycleia, a bond slave, to survive her transplantation to Ithaca, to assimilate the diverse cultures of her existence, and just as in the Caribbean, to instill the virtuosity of an Anansi figure in the minds of Telemachus and Odysseus.
With his alternating poetic identities, Billy Blue is another of Walcott's purveyors of creative imagination. Despite his physical blindness, the Homeric poet sees with the mind's eye and immortalizes himself along with the heroes in his tale; to this, Walcott's play adds occasional allusions to Blue's function as a poet. When Alcinous and his courtiers encourage Odysseus to recount his adventures for Phemius/Blue to formulate into song [54], they anticipate his tale's longevity and influence: it "will ride time to unknown archipelagos" [59]. Again, 100 pages later, when Odysseus exhibits madness after the slaughter of all his wife's suitors, he threatens to execute Billy Blue. Only Eumaeus's timely protest forestalls his death: "He's a homeless, wandering voice, Odysseus.... Kill him and you stain the fountain of poetry" [151-52]. Here lies motive for preservation of Homer's voice and material, stained with slightly less blood and altered befitting Walcott's dual heritage.
Largely due to his multiple masks and his itinerant status, Billy Blue provides the narrative with an African-Caribbean voice more frequently than the domestic servant Eurycleia. Leading up to Circe's seductive overtures to Odysseus, it is Billy Blue who supplies a prologue in West Indian dialetct. Whereas Homer's Athena slips Odysseus the potent Moly flower to counteract Circe's love potion, Billy Blue inventories a witch's brew spiced with thyme, coriander, basil, rosewater, and lavender, but he also lists ingredients familiar to the West Indian palate: "Man-you-must" and gooseberry wine. Circe, who is "sweeter than guava jam" (79-80), seduces Odysseus, but the classical Moly flower averts the fate that has befallen her other lovers: transformation into swine.
As Walcott has it, Billy Blue is just one element in a four-scene creolization of the entire Circe episode (act 1, scenes 10-13). Beginning with the stage set for scene 10, Walcott's Caribbeanized island of Aeaea is distinguished by its thick growth of wild plantain. By the time Circe puts in her appearance, the sailors are already reveling in a kaiso (calypso-styled) chorus:
The island of Calypso Aeaea Ai-ee-o Bacchanal And carnival Is the place to go O Lord have mercy Before I dead Let me lie down with Miss Circe Stroking me head Stroking me bald head That have only one eye When she stops See me Cyclops Falling down dead O Lord have mercy .................. But when Circe spell fell on me I turn beast too. (75)
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