The Schooner Flight and Disembarking at Quebec
...d English with alliterative qualities that echoes the English literary tradition such as: “...to ship as a seaman on the schooner Flight.” To later on incorporating Caribbean elements and expressions like: “...with their big house, big car, big-time bohbohl,” The language, the use of the common vernacular, increases the authenticity not only of the narrator, but of his frustration, the way it forces him into the language of his deepest sensitivity. He does not fit. He has lived there all his life, and still has no concrete place there. Later in the first section Shabine is telling us how the colonisation has played a big part in his feeling of alienation. How “they” ´poisoned his soul´ with their capitalism and their influence on the races. He says: “I have Dutch, nigger and English in me, and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation...” Where Walcotts character Shabine is, as a consequence of his sense of alienation, fleeing his country on a vessel appropriately enough called Flight, Atwoods character is ending a journey to start a new life. But none the less with the same feeling of doubt and desperation. “...is it my own lack/ of conviction which makes/ these vistas of desolation,/long hills,.../ the moon alien in day-time/ a thin refusal” She describes this new country/nature with negatively charged adjectives such as ‘barren sand’ and ‘bone-white driftlogs’ You can almost see the human bones drifting to shore on this desolate beach. She does this to emphasise the frustration and pessimism of the character. We really get the sense of alienation when she uses the words ‘incongruous pink of my shawl’ The fact that the colour pink is misplaced is a symbol of her feeling that she does not belong there. She can not figure out if it is the fact that she feels misplaced or her lack of belief that makes her incapable of refusing it all. It is like she is standing on the sideline not taking part in anything, just drifting along. “The others leap, shout/ Freedom! Shabine is also dealing with an internal struggle. Whether to stay or to leave. The images reflect this: “...the sea heaving up and down...” It symbolises the eternal batt...