How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Page)
Quote #4
We helped ourselves/to these green islands like olives from a saucer,/munched on the pith, then spat their sucked stones on a plate,/like a melon's black seeds. (V.i.25)
Major Plunkett is caught between two realities: a colonial past and his current ex-pat existence on the island. He feels resentment because he's associated with the Brits, who exploited his adopted home for all it was worth—but at the same time, Plunkett also feels shame over being lumped into the same category as the colonialists
Quote #5
[…] the island was once/named Helen; its Homeric association/rose like smoke from a siege; the Battle of the Saints/was launched with that sound from what was the "Gibraltar of the Caribbean," after thirteen treaties/while she changed prayers often as knees at an altar,/till between French and British her final peace/was signed at Versailles. (V.iii.31)
St. Lucia's complex past encourages associations with Homer's war culture. The fight over Greek Helen's body—like the fight over the island—is about more than beauty and possession. It's about power and national pride.
Quote #6
"This island of St. Lucia […] let me tell you is heading for unqualified/disaster […] I am not/joking. Every vote is your ticket, your free ride on the Titanic: a cruise back to slavery/in liners like hotels you cannot sit inside/except as waiters, maids […] Like that man hopping there, St. Lucia look healthy/with bananas and tourists, but her soul crying" (XX.ii.107)
Statics hits the nail on the head, though he has no success in capturing the vote. His view of the political process is very dim, taken together with his observations on society in St. Lucia. Participation in economic and political progress seems all sewn up by the corporations who commandeer the island's resources and keep local workers in poverty.