18 pages • 36 minutes read
The Almond Trees
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Symbols & Motifs
The Fisherman
If “The Almond Trees” were a painting—given its lush sense of place, palette, and its careful detailing it reflects Walcott’s early interest in painting—the figure would barely be noticed: the lonely fisherman casting into the morning surf, his mongrel dog playing a careless game of fetch while the fisherman works his pole.
The fisherman is the lone Caribbean figure in the poem, and as such, compared to the carefree European tourists who will, within hours, stretch out lazily in the fierce tropical sun to tan, the fisherman symbolizes the practical, hard-working Caribbean people and their long-established relationship with the land and the ocean. Unlike the late-rising tourists, the fisherman is intent and diligent, up early; unlike the oiled tourists, he understands that the natural gifts of the islands are not to be wasted as a mere playground for the lazy and the wealthy. He works the land with respect—it is his livelihood. “Foam-haired, salt-grizzled” (Line 10), he embodies the spirit of the island’s working-class people.
The Sun/The Sand
In a poem that valorizes the community spirit of multiculturalism, positing that the way forward for the Caribbean culture is to embrace its past without shame or anger, the focus on the furnace-sun with its “fierce acetylene air” (Line 23) and the sand’s “white-hot ash underheel” (Line 28) symbolizes those elements of the beach setting that unite rather than divide the people, the mix of locals and tourists.
After all, the sun equally bakes the indigenous sea-almond trees—their weathered bark indicating the effects of the unrelenting glare—and the European tourists eager—perhaps too eager—to lounge on their expensive beach towels. “Their bodies fiercely shine!” (Line 30), the exclamation point driving home the tourists’ commitment to bronzing. Whoever attempts to cross the beach (the opening lines tell us the sand is cool early in the morning when the beach is deserted) must alike negotiate the blazing surface; locals and tourists both step gingerly, quickly across the sand. As elements of the island’s natural world, the sun and the sand suggest how nature, itself a complex ecosystem of dynamic forces working together, emphasizes the importance of community.
The Brown Daphnes
By describing the European tourists tanning on the noon beach as “Brown Daphnes” (Line 19), the poem introduces the complex idea of cultural fusion. Daphne is a figure drawn not from Caribbean folklore but from Greek myth—Daphne was a beautiful river nymph who drew the unwanted attention of the god Apollo who used cunning and relentlessness to pursue the girl until, with the intercession of Gaia, the goddess of the earth, Daphne was transformed into a lush tree, forever avoiding the loss of her innocence.
The introduction of Greek myth infuses the otherwise distinctly Saint Lucian poem with touches of European culture, a reflection of the poet’s perception of his native island country as a hybrid culture. In addition, the story of Daphne is a story of transformation—to preserve herself, Daphne is changed into something different. Similarly, the poem argues, the Caribbean culture must accept radical transformation, reconstruct itself into something that is at once startlingly new and yet preserves critical elements of its identity intact. After all, Daphne is and is not the laurel tree, much as Saint Lucia itself, metamorphosizing in the postcolonial world, both is and is not Caribbean.
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By Derek Walcott
