Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms defines a simile as: “An explicit comparison between two different things, actions, or feelings, using the words “like” or “like”…” (Baldick 334). In his critically acclaimed epic poem, Omeros, Derek Walcott uses similes to connect the injury to Philoctetes' shin to the sea as the giver of life and taker of life, thus linking it to the movement of slaves, symbolizing the injury of Philoctetes like the wounds of slavery. His lesion is healed when Ma Kilman picks a flower from their homeland for her medicine, signifying the return of their ancestors to their homeland. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Throughout Omeros, Walcott compares Philoctetes' shin injury to sea creatures, which connects him to the ocean. In this poem, the ocean gives life and takes life. It provides food and profit to Saint Lucia as fishermen catch food to eat and sell, and it designates the Caribbean as a vacation spot for tourists visiting cruise ships. People in Saint Lucia can also trade via ocean liners. He steals Hector's life when he drives his van over the cliff on page 226, and steals the lives of slaves brought to America via slave ships. Walcott writes: "The negro cabins / moved like a running wound, like the rusty anchor / that crusted the shin of Philoctetes," the rusty anchor of the sea that took his freedom and, metaphorically, his life (Walcott 178). He is forced to work for Plunkett rather than the sea, as he aspired to do, just as slaves were taken by sea to work for American slavers. Along with the metaphorical end of life by means of stolen freedom, “records suggest that as late as the 1750s, one in five Africans on board ships died” (International Slavery Museum). The sea literally takes lives, as it did with Hector, as it did with the slaves. When Philoctetes' wound is first presented, Walcott writes, "It wrinkled like the corolla of a sea urchin" (Walcott 4). Linking Philoctetes' injury to the displacement of slavery, sea urchin is a delicacy in the Caribbean; so they are commonly poached, just as people were poached from their home countries and devoured by American slavery (Jamaica Observer). Covered in a hard shell and painfully sharp spines, they sting when threatened (Gardner). Thus, first using a sea urchin to describe Philoctetes' wound, Walcott symbolizes the resistance of the slaves in fighting their captors. According to the Understanding Slavery Initiative, slaves in the Caribbean rebelled and fled or fought against colonial forces, even taking control of armies and islands. However, they were ultimately defeated, captured and sold into slavery, driving them from their homeland. The next two times Walcott mentions Philoctetes' wound, he writes: "The wound on his shin / still unhealed, like a radiant anemone" and "The itch." in the wound/tingles like the tendrils of the anemone” (Walcott 9-19). This is a significant step back from the comparison with sea urchins, as anemones are "simple, soft-bodied animals that remain primarily sedentary, flower-like in appearance" (Gardner). A notable change in comparison, it now symbolizes the fact that after their capture, slaves went from combat to submission to slavers and colonialism. While more and more 2017.