If we're going to talk about love in Omeros, we can't get around the Helens. Achille and Hector battle it out over Helen the beautiful, but at the heart of all desire is the other Helen: St. Lucia. She is the heroine for whom Achille, Hector, Philoctete, Major Plunkett, and the narrator live and breathe, for whom they work and suffer. Love for the island motivates all major actions in the poem, from Plunkett's obsessive research to Achille's spirit-journey and the narrator's movements around the world.
As Omeros explains at the end of the poem, everything the narrator has done—his choice of subject and poetic form, his journeys, the research—has been for love of his people and the beauty of his island. The other loves, including the narrator's failed relationships and the Plunketts' feelings for each other, orbit around an abiding devotion to the land and its history. In the end, there's only one true love.
Questions About Love
- Why does Warwick visit his son the first time? In what ways does the second visitation differ?
- Why does Walcott use Helen of Troy to think about the Caribbean Helens?
- What is Major Plunkett's relationship with St. Lucia? How is it different than his attachment to England?
- What happens when the narrator returns to St. Lucia to visit his mother?
Chew on This
The Helens in Omeros epitomize ideal female beauty, but they also personify the beauty of the natural world that inspires passion in the people around them.
Major Plunkett's relationship with Helen (the island and the woman) is deeper and more complex than his relationship with his wife, Maud.