The formation of the ‘I’ through the ‘Eye’ in Derek Walcott’s Poetry

Abstract

On a closer analysis of Derek Walcott‟s poems (1948-84), it
gradually becomes evident that the poet's gaze in recreating space
also initiates a complex process of identification. This paper seeks
to examine how Walcott self consciously uses shiny, transparent
and opaque surfaces to generate a series of images of the Self in
various contexts of the past and present. The „eye‟ thus becomes an
instrument for the formation of the “I". In the course of this study I
will draw upon Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory of the Gaze
and in particular upon the Mirror Stage of Identification. Lacan's
theory restricts itself mainly to man-made mirrors.