Journal of Al-qadisiya in arts and educational sciense

Abstract

This paper deals with "The Crisis of Hybrid Identity in Derek Walcott's " The Schooner Flight"". Identity can be defined as the perception of one's self which permits individuals to identify where and with whom they fit socially, thus it encourages questions like "Who Am I? What am I? Who are you? What are you?". In the twentieth century the issue of national and regional identity takes on great importance in Caribbean poetry . Derek Walcott, among many others have attempted to define the particularity of individual nations or of the Caribbean region as a whole, creating a meta-narrative of identity and a peculiar "Caribbean discourse". The paper focuses on the longest and most representative poem of Derek Walcott's poetry " The Schooner Flight". This poem which is concerned with the search for identity is about a West Indian sailor called Shabine. He is a man of the folk who serves as Walcott's mask since he is of mixed European and African blood, like Walcott himself. He can also be taken as representative of the West Indian people as a whole rather than just of his alter ego Walcott for he embodies a variety of r racial and ethnic admixture. By introducing his celebrated statement of identity "I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,/ and either I'm nobody or I'm a nation" (CP,346), Shabine stakes a claim not only for himself as individual, but also for the West Indian people; that they are certainly a nation, and a people in the true sense of the word.