The Story Archive

Another Life

Derek Walcott · 1973 CE · Poem · Caribbean · Contemporary

Two boys on St Lucia decide with absolute seriousness to paint and write their island into existence, apprenticed to an English watercolourist in a shed above the harbour and reading each other's ambitions like scripture. Anna arrives, the town of Castries burns to the ground, and the vocation starts costing what vocations cost. A four-book verse autobiography that stands with the century's long poems on the growth of a mind.

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Attributes

Genre
Coming-of-AgePsychological
Theme
Art & CreationComing of AgeMemory & TimeLove
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
CreatorLoverMentorEveryman
Plot structure
BildungsromanMeditationNonlinear / Fractured
Symbol / motif
The SeaThe PortraitThe House
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
LyricalElegiacRomantic
Culture / tradition
Caribbean

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