Omeros Book 7

I can’t seem to get over Walcott continueally referring to Helen as a panther. Early in book 1, Helen is like a panther when she is selling masks or t-shirts. She looks “just as a pantheress [who] stops swinging its tail to lightly leap into the grass, she yawned” (36). She simply watches the surroundings and swiftly disappears like some large cat. In the next chapter, Helen is provoked and the “claws raked [Achille’s] face in a flash…he fine teeth sawed his knuckles, she clawed at his good clothes” (39). Panthers are thought to be fierce and powerful, yet very elusive. Helen’s description as a panther seems to reveal more about her character than long, drawn-out descriptions. But Walcott, continues to use this image. Throughout her pregnancy, Helen looks like a feline. In one of the last scenes in Omeros, we are brought back to this image of the panther as Helen waits tables since Helen’s “slow eyes approaching you with the leisure of a panther” (322). It gives the audience the impression that the story is not yet over. Helen has the power to erupt once more if she is provoked. It seems to decribe the whole island: if they are provoked, they might rise up and attempt to free themselves from the Western world and its constraints upon the economy and the people.