How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Page)
Quote #1
The sore on his shin/still unhealed, like a radiant anemone. It had come/from a scraping, rusted anchor. The pronged iron/peeled the skin in a backwash. (II.i.9-10)
This is the first and most literal explanation of Philoctete's wound—but it is doesn't get to the true nature of the festering sore. You might be thinking that he's got a nice case of tetanus, but you'd be at least partly wrong. Philoctete's wound cannot be healed because of its deeper connections to the sufferings of his enslaved ancestors on the island.
Quote #2
His skin was a nettle,/his head a market of ants; he heard the crabs groan/from arthritic pincers, he felt a mole-cricket drill/his sore to the bone. His knee was radiant iron,/his chest was a sack of ice, and behind the bars/of his rusted teeth, like a mongoose in a cage,/a scream was mad to come out (IV.i.21)
Philoctete's suffering is wicked serious. It's not just that he's had the bad luck to scrape his leg on a submerged anchor; he's also enduring the physical tolls of poverty and the psychological weight of his entire race. Ouch.
Quote #3
This wound I have stitched into Plunkett's character./He has to be wounded, affliction is one theme/of this work, this fiction, since every "I" is a/fiction finally. (V.ii.28)
Walcott is not shy about speaking directly to his audience about his methods in this work. He tells us straight-up that he's interested in suffering and that he's creating entire characters who will explore pain and find ways to endure. Walcott also gives us a glimpse of his thoughts on the first-person narrator. Is he a fictional character? Is he Walcott the real, live poet? Yes to both, since all representations of the self are fictional.