In “The Sea is History,” Derek Walcott reframes the ocean as an archive that resists the neat documentation associated with Western historiography. Walcott suggests that the sea functions as both a repository and ruin, one where it is a space where traditional historial “records” dissolve, yet the collective memory endures in non-material ways.
This tension emerges in the passage “the sea had locked them up. The sea is History.” Walcott’s choice in using the verb “locked” implies both safekeeping and imprisonment. The drowned bodies of enslaved Africans, unnamed and unarchived, are not lost; rather they are held in a space where history often overlooks. Walcott also elevates the ocean from backdrop to narrator and the sea becomes a historical text written by its currents, storms, and absences. He deepens this idea in the lines describing “the rusting cannons and broken statues.” These symbols of empire are not glorified; they decay underwater, stripped of authority. Their ruin exposes the fragility of colonial narratives that once claimed permanence.
Ultimately, the poem argues that history cannot only be found written in documents, but also what they gloss over: the trauma, silence, and memories embedded in places often ignored. Walcott’s ocean demands that we listen to the history that has been submerged for centuries.
This is a beautiful and brilliant close reading. You should definitely consider expanding it for essay two!
Hello Adrian,
This notion that history is only to be true if it is written is something that I also mentioned in my post and in which, I realized how much information may be forgotten and or lost; crucial information at that. Yes the environment has history in and of itself and yes it is often overlooked (as you commented on), but unfortunately, it is only the figures that hold power that can change it or alter it as they please which makes one question whether the metaphorical “lock” detaining the archives within the sea is kept like that deliberately by certain people to hide the truth, or if there is just certain information that is barred from humans, never to be discovered.
Adrian, I really enjoyed your take on Walcott. The way you read the verb “locked” as both safekeeping and imprisonment clarifies the poem’s moral charge: the sea keeps what archives ignore, but it also marks unresolved captivity. Your point especially strikes me that the ocean becomes a narrator—currents, storms, and absences turning into evidence. The decaying cannons and statues sharpen that idea by letting the empire corrode while memory persists. Overall, great response, thank you!
Hello Adrian, I wrote something similar in my post. Where the poem implies that the ocean holds more emotional accounts of what occurred during the slave trade. I agree with you on the documentation part. Where in textbooks and others there’s a certain disconnect between the people they’re talking about, and the events that transpired. You don’t really learn anything about the people themselves, and in historical documentation that important part is lost.
Hi Adrian!
I also appreciated how Walcott was able to use that western historiography that you mentioned almost as a juxtaposition to this ocean history. He uses it almost as a way of framing a history so unmentioned in comparison to religious geographic history, for example. This history is definitely, as you said, “glossed over”. Great post!