Omeros

Hector drives his van through the mountainous part of Saint Lucia. He ignores the warnings from Dennis Plunkett that he should be more careful. A piglet ventures into the road, and Hector swerves to avoid it, crashing the Comet. Hector dies. His dead body appears to express remorse.

When Derek comes to the island, the taxi drivers jostle for his business. When he gets into a cab, the driver mentions Hector dying “in that chariot” (226). Derek despises the island’s ostensible progress toward a “concrete future” (227), either because he resents the changing way of life or because he feels it altering his poetic vision for Saint Lucia. He feels guilty that it may be the latter, which he compares to Dennis Plunkett researching the history of the island out of a sense of personal guilt. There is hypocrisy in art, Derek notes—art claims to value the quaint objects of everyday life but is always ready to abandon poor villages for ornate churches. Derek fears that he also only idealizes the lives of the poor to benefit his poetry. When other people visit Saint Lucia, they take away the local dialect; they do not show interest in the people or their talents. Eventually, the traditional way of life will be cast aside to accommodate tourists. Then, Saint Lucia will look like every other beach resort.

When the taxi driver stops to urinate (near the place where Hector crashed his van), he speaks about Hector as a good friend with a nice girlfriend. Derek frames Hector’s death as a punishment: Hector felt hollow and ashamed of his new profession—though he had Helen and money, he regretted turning his back on his true love, the sea.

Hector is buried in a grave near the sea “he had loved once” (232). Achille kneels beside the grave and talks to his old friend about his experience in Africa, promising that Hector will be greeted by his ancestors. Philoctete comforts Achille, who lays down an oar in memory of Hector. Seven Seas and Helen watch but do not participate. Achille struggles to put his emotions into words; Derek describes Achille’s respect for Hector and his sincere belief that they were best friends. Achille waves to Helen with the bailing tin (the ostensible cause of their fight in the opening chapters). After the funeral, Helen is a changed woman. She grows prouder and “ennobled by distance” (233). Her pregnancy makes her more beautiful. As day turns to night, Achille and Philoctete return to work. Wilderness is being cleared for new buildings, and wildlife is being displaced. The moon shines on Hector’s grave as Philoctete treats his unhealing wound.

Ma Kilman tries to heal Philoctete’s wound but struggles to find the right approach. At Mass, she takes a mental inventory of all the cures she knows, but she cannot remember the right one for this particular injury. She thinks while taking part in the church ceremony and talking to her friends. There is a plant, the narrator says, that grows at the foot of a cedar tree. Ma feels compelled to venture away from the church and out through the hilly landscape in pursuit of “the reek of an unknown weed” (237). She follows a trail of ants, which lead her to the plant that will cure Philoctete’s wound. Derek explains that it was carried to Saint Lucia by a sea swift from Africa. The journey was long and hard; the bird died soon after depositing the seed in just the right place. The seed grew into a plant at the “damp root” of the cedar tree (239).

Derek confesses that his personal life is strewn with failed romantic relationships. He has essentially abandoned his children and his partners to focus on his “craft.” 

Ma Kilman’s difficulty in finding a cure was caused by her knowing the Christian names for the plants rather than their true names. Catholicism also diluted her knowledge. Now, however, she has learned the true names. She takes on the appearance of a traditional African healing woman, throwing away her wig. She listens to the trail of ants, which speak to her in an ancestral language that she can understand. Ma prays in this language—a mix of old and new—for Philoctete’s wound to heal. In his bed, Philoctete can already feel his “rotting shin” improving (244). When Ma emerges from the woods, Seven Seas senses her passing by.

Ma Kilman applies her new treatment to Philoctete’s wound. In a symbolic ritual, she bathes him in a cauldron taken from the island’s old sugar mill. As she does so, she scolds him in a motherly tone. Philoctete feels his wound finally drain. The narrator wonders whether the treatment might have cured more than just the wound; Derek compares the healing to the redemption of the Greek hero with whom Philoctete shares a name. The healing process is partly metaphysical: It involves the removal of his “wrong name” (247). Philoctete feels emotionally renewed, stepping from the bathing ritual like Adam emerging into the Garden of Eden. Derek feels healed as well, finally letting go of his romantic feelings for his former partner. Derek takes comfort from being in the Caribbean. Elsewhere, the pregnant Helen tries to deal with the intense heat.

Though the Plunketts wanted to take a cruise, their plans have changed. Dennis is secretly pleased as he remembers their last vacation to England. He had a miserable time, and the English accents surrounding him were very unnerving after so long away. Dennis did not feel as though he could speak “proper language” (252); everything he said sounded like an order, as though he were still a drill sergeant. He missed Saint Lucia—even its loud noises, hurricanes, and wildlife.

Maud feels “exhausted.” She spends a long part of the day sleeping or thinking about death, though she does not yet feel ready to die. She prefers gardening to listening to her husband’s talk of empires.

Dennis remembers an encounter with Hector on one of the island roads. He was taking Maud to the local church when Hector nearly crashed into his car at “incredible speed” (255). Dennis leapt out, ready to fight the driver, but when he realized that it was Hector, he calmed down, warning Hector to be more careful. When Dennis returned to the car, he told Maud that the accident was his fault.

After taking Maud to Mass, Dennis explores the church. He remembers visiting Lisbon during the early part of their marriage and wondering whether they might live in Portugal. Dennis’s manner of walking is now very similar to that of Midshipman Plunkett. In the church, Maud receives Communion. Outside, Dennis buys bread from the bakery. In the car on the way home, he tries to eat the bread, and she taps his hand, stopping him. He touches her thigh, but his playful attitude is not reciprocated. Maud feels strange. At home, she chooses not to go to her garden because its smell reminds her of “bodily decay” (260).

Maud dies from cancer. Dennis finds her; she was reading his old love letters just before her death. He reads them to her body. Overwhelmed by grief, he lies down in the bed beside her “as if they were statues on a stone tomb” (261). He sorts through the old memorabilia in the tea chest she kept; the items remind him of their life together. To Derek, Dennis and Maud are versions of his own parents. He feels like Telemachus (the son of Odysseus), suffering due to the absence of his father.

Maud’s funeral is held, and Derek attends. Achille and Helen stand beside Philoctete. Derek wonders why they have come, especially given that Hector died so recently. Derek is impressed with the “charity” of Achille, as his relation to the Plunketts is cleaning out their pig pen. Achille’s charity is even greater than Helen’s beauty.

Derek did not truly know Maud. He included her in his poem mostly for her garden. Derek knows Dennis better, as Dennis trained Derek when Derek was a cadet. Derek notes the strangeness of attending a funeral for a fictional character he created. When he glimpsed Maud through Dennis’s eyes, however, he saw his own late mother. At the funeral, Maud’s coffin is covered in the embroidered bird quilt. As he passes with the coffin, Dennis acknowledges the presence of Achille, Helen, and Philoctete. The church empties. Helen approaches Achille—she is “coming home” (267).

The following day, Derek sees Dennis in the bank. For the first time, he sees Dennis as “one with the farmers” (268). He does not expect the privileges that many expect him to demand. Dennis pauses to talk to Derek. The conversation is awkward, but Dennis invites Derek to the house to see the embroidered quilt. Derek talks about his desire to write about Helen. Dennis shares a similar motivation; both are drawn to the woman and the island. Whether Helen needs them, however, is a different matter.

Derek ponders this question, asking why he has constructed such an elaborate allusion to Homer’s epic poem rather than just viewing Helen as a beautiful woman in her own right. Derek wonders whether he can reverse the association between Helen, the island, and Homer. In this case, his work as a poet and his education seem to be conspiring against him.

At Christmastime, Seven Seas and Philoctete dine with Ma Kilman. The next day, Achille and Philoctete get ready for their annual show. They dress in drag and perform a dance to entertain the locals. Philoctete wears a banana leaf skirt and a calabash mask. Achille wears the yellow dress that Helen stole from Maud. Achille prepares by washing himself at the standpipe. Ma Kilman’s healing has worked—Philoctete is “cured now” (274). Helen helps Achille get into the dress and adds rags to give him the appearance of breasts. They perform this dance, Achille tells her, because of an old African tradition he remembers from his heatstroke journey. Helen is very pregnant. Derek compares her swollen belly to the golden apple that was the catalyst for the Trojan War in The Iliad. Helen helping Achille shows that they have put their differences aside. They are happy now. Achille and Philoctete perform. Achille dances well, but Philoctete feels a familiar pain as he relives the memories of his ancestors and their experience of enslavement. The crowd is delighted. Achille surveys the audience “with great arrogance” while Philoctete cries (277).