Omeros

The narrative moves to New England, where the summer is about to end and the temperatures are dropping. The narrator describes the landscape near the sea and the sound of the waves on the beach. In Massachusetts, Derek has recently broken up with his partner Antigone. He feels lonely, as though he has lost the “war of love” (171). He believes that everyone at the local restaurant where he eats regularly knows what has happened to him. Refusing to acknowledge the extent of his defeat in this war, he compares himself to a Japanese soldier in World War II who refused to surrender. He compares his existence to being lost at sea. He sees Antigone, or a similar-looking person, on the street, watching until he loses sight of her. Derek feels even more lost; when he reaches home, he wishes that she were there, waiting for him.

The final part of this chapter is written in rhyming iambic couplets. Derek describes his lonely life in a direct address to his house, by which he means the physical space in which he lives and the body he occupies.