The Craft of Sublimation: A Comparative Study on the Portrayal of Suffering in

Abstract

The practice of channeling energies derived from suffering into an act of healing, leading to a
positive transformation is not new in the world of literature. Walcott and Brathwaite both have
partaken in this practice. The suffering in Walcott and Brathwaite’s case is caused, largely, due
to owning a diasporic identity. However, along with it, also weighs heavy the history of a
wounded past. They have channeled this suffering into a creative force by producing works that
sublime the angst that is not simply exclusive to them but flows through the majority of the
Caribbean population. Walcott and Brathwaite have justified their suffering of identity crisis
through helping a nation heal its wounds, and in certain contexts, making it transcend its former
self to a healthier form. However, they have crafted unique styles to achieve that end. The paper
attempts to highlight the differences as well as similarities between the methods and perceptions
of these two poets in this regard.

Full text

Title of the Article
The Craft of Sublimation: A Comparative Study on the Portrayal of
Suffering in Derek Walcott and Kamau Brathwaite’s Poetry
Siamul Islam
Lecturer, Department of English, R. P. Shaha University
Mailing address: Department of English, R. P. Shaha University, Narayanganj-1400
E-mail address(Corresponding author) : siamul95@gmail.com

Abstract
The practice of channeling energies derived from suffering into an act of healing, leading to a
positive transformation is not new in the world of literature. Walcott and Brathwaite both have
partaken in this practice. The suffering in Walcott and Brathwaite’s case is caused, largely, due
to owning a diasporic identity. However, along with it, also weighs heavy the history of a
wounded past. They have channeled this suffering into a creative force by producing works that
sublime the angst that is not simply exclusive to them but flows through the majority of the
Caribbean population. Walcott and Brathwaite have justified their suffering of identity crisis
through helping a nation heal its wounds, and in certain contexts, making it transcend its former
self to a healthier form. However, they have crafted unique styles to achieve that end. The paper
attempts to highlight the differences as well as similarities between the methods and perceptions
of these two poets in this regard.
Keywords: Diasporic Identity, Identity Crisis, Collective Wound, Sublimation, Channeling

1. Introduction
In the field of psychology, sublimation is defined as a ‘mature type of defense mechanism’
which functions to transform socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations into socially
acceptable actions or behavior, the process takes place in the unconscious. Prominent
psychologists such as Freud and Jung had differentiating ideas about the concept of
sublimation. According to Laplanche & Pontalis, Freud viewed sublimation as a process:
to account for human activities which have no apparent connection with sexuality but
which are assumed to be motivated by the force of the sexual instinct. The main types of
activity described by Freud as sublimated are artistic creation and intellectual inquiry
(431).
Jung states:
Sublimation is part of the royal art where the true gold is made…. It is not a voluntary
and forcible channeling of instinct into a spurious field of application, but
an alchymical transformation for which fire and prima materia are needed. Sublimation is
a great mystery (171).
The History of sublimation of suffering through literature is rich. Dante produced The Divine
Comedy while being on exile. Beethoven composed Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 while
going through the incredible suffering of hearing loss. Frida Kahlo transformed her haunting
loneliness into a series of self-portraits. These acts of sublimation of their pain through creative
endeavors not only helped to heal their own selves but persisted through ages to mend and
transform many other souls in despair. While analyzing Walcott and Brathwaite, a continuity of
such practices can be detected, functioning as a true fulfillment of their creative spirit.

This article employs a qualitative methodology to assemble relevant data. The primary data
source is a critical evaluation of the authors’ original texts. Secondary data sources include
research articles, newspaper articles, internet blogs, along with books related to the context and
interpretation of said texts. Finally, this compilation is used for a thematic and narrative analysis
to draw a comparison between the poets’ approach towards sublimation strategies. As a paper, it
utilizes an investigative literature review to show different facets of this comparison through
dividing the discussion section into multiple thematic sections.
2. Discussion
“Don't turn your head. Keep looking at the bandaged place. That's where the light enters you.”
(Rumi 31). The notion of suffering’s potential to instigate a positive transformation has been
anciently hailed. As Satre puts it “Suffering is justified when it can become the raw material for
beauty.” The sufferings plaguing Walcott and Brathwaite are diverse in nature, accompanied
often by complex interrelations. Hence, portraying the likeness and dissimilarities of sublimating
such sufferings between the two poets requires a nuanced approach. The discussion is divided
into three sections, each of which attempts to explore this issue through a particular theme.
2.1 Diasporic Identity: The Complexity behind Individual and Collective Suffering
Walcott and Brathwaite both own a diasporic identity. Walcott has African, English, and Dutch
in his blood as he states in “The Schooner Flight”, “I have Dutch, nigger and English in me,”
(line 42). On the other hand, Brathwaite has African roots. Walcott’s pain of identity crisis
emerges as he writes in “A Far Cry from Africa”, “I who am poisoned with the blood of both, /
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?” (lines 26-17). In “Bosompra” Brathwaite writes of his
own frustration as he feels a broken link between him and his African ancestry, “who was lost, /

tossed among strangers,” (Lines 26-27). In Walcott’s “Midsummer” the suffering of identity
crisis can be realized as he writes, “You were distressed by your habitat, you shall not find
peace” (line 5), but he also finds a path of subliming the suffering, “till you and your origins
reconcile” (line 6). Alongside identity crisis, the memories and effects of colonization, slavery,
racism, The Middle Passage and indentured labor, all of which constitutes a wounded past,
plague both poets’ consciousness. Walcott often points to this wounded past, as in Omeros he
alludes to slavery, “He believed the swelling came from the chained ankles/of his grandfathers.
Or else why was there no cure? / That the cross he carried was not only the anchor’s/but that of
his race” (19). In What the Twilight Says he refers to indentured labor stating, “We have no more
proprietorship as a race than have the indentured workers from Asia except the claim is wholly
made. By all the races as one race” (21). In “New World A-Comin” Brathwaite also echoes the
pain he derives from the memories of his African roots, pushing him towards an imagination of
the feebleness his ancestors, preys to slavery, might have felt, “Helpless like this” (line 1). He
despairs, “It will be a long time before we see this land again” (lines 70 – 71). In “Bosompra” he
pleads, “can you hear / can you hear me?” and prays further, “can you soothe / the wind’s salt /
scorching my eye,”. Brathwaite’s angst towards racism rages in “Folkways” as he writes, “I am a
fuck- / in’ negro, / man, hole/in my head / brains in my belly; /” (lines 2 – 6). In “New World A-
Comin’” he also illustrates the journey of The Middle Passage, “Watch now these cold men, bold
/ as the water banging the bow in a sudden wild tide, / indifferent, it seems, to the battle / of wind
in the water” (lines 81 – 84). It becomes evident that both poets are agonized over a combination
of identity crisis and their wounded history as a Caribbean.

2.2 Identical Patterns of Sublimation: Two Sides of the Same Coin
An interesting fact is that both poets often portray the suffering and then sublimate it in the same
poem. In “New World A-Comin’” Brathwaite states, “It will be a long time before we see / these
farms again” (line 77). He then sublimes it with a hope for the future, “will create new soils, new
souls, new / ancestors;” (lines 78 – 79). Walcott goes at it even more beautifully as in Omeros he
brings up the suffering and the sublimation of it in two chronological lines, “When one grief
afflicts us, we choose a sharper grief / in hope that enormity will ease affliction” (ch. 35).
Walcott and Brathwaite both use the conception of history and the issue of identity to their
process of sublimation. It is, however, important to note that despite the common practice of both
poets is to address and soothe the hurt; they have their own strategies to perform that task.
2.3 Walcott vs Brathwaite: Different Styles Breeding Unique Approaches to Sublimation
Brathwaite’s inclusion of performative language can be viewed as a nonconventional
sublimation strategy to soothe the angst of the collective. The use of Blues rhythm and
inspiration from jazz and gospel are prominent features of Brathwaite’s literature. Negro
Spirituals or African-American folk songs contained hidden messages which the slaves used to
escape from their state of enslavement. This was practiced among the African slaves brought to
the Caribbean through The Middle Passage. The origination of Gospel music was from these
Spirituals. Brathwaite’s implementation of the patterns of Gospel music in his works echoes the
process of sublimation (as well as the parallel use as a technique to escape captivity) practiced by
his African ancestors. Also, Brathwaite portrays an analogy that Afro-Diasporic folks can escape
oppression in settings beyond the terrifying Middle Passage through means other than death
(Hines 15).

Walcott, on the other hand, employs a sense of ambivalence as a form of sublimation. In “The
Ruins of a Great house” Walcott writes, “But still the coal of my compassion fought: / That
Albion too was once / A colony like ours, ‘part of the continent, piece of the main’” (lines 43-
45). In “Love After Love” he utters advice to relish one’s life, “Sit. Feast on your life” (line 15).
In Omeros he upholds language as balms to the wound, “this language carries its cure, / its
radiant affliction” (ch. 64). Walcott also believes in the healing properties of the island itself. As
Omeros can be compared to the island's potential for "self-healing", which, the poem claims,
enables it to assimilate modernity's disharmony into its unbroken natural perfection (Breslin
265).
2.3 Healing a Nation through Poetry: Contrastive Treatment of History
Walcott offers his conception of history as the character Jordan states in his play Remembrance
(1980), “erase history from your mind and make it your own…history, gossip, rumor and what
people go say? Blank it out!” (75). He further states, “It doesn’t matter where you are born, how
obscure you are, … fame and fortune are contained within you” (86). The sense and conception
of renouncing external validation for internal worth roars with affirmation in these verses. In his
essay “The Muse of History,” he states, “history is fiction, subject to a fitful muse, memory”
(37). Walcott here uses his perception of the concept of history to a manner of sublimation, to
rouse hope within oneself by helping that person unburden the weight of a concrete,
unchangeable history. His art transforms what was previously accepted as set in stone into a
puddle of clay, to be shaped as one pleases. The disconnection from the past and the
disconnection from the future are both aspects of a larger historical trauma...where whatever has
happened could happen again, opposites may trade places, and time could flow in either
direction. (Breslin 253). This notion of removing the source of history (that is, the concept of

time itself) from the fabric of the Caribbean persona gives way to a tremendous sense of
freedom, a spiritual rebirth. Walcott takes the contents of trauma, and with beautiful skill, turns
the structure on its head, subliming a fire that tormented into a fire that protects. Walcott seems
to be fascinated more with the present that history can offer us as in “The Muse of History” he
writes, “It is not the pressure of the past which torments great poets but the weight of the
present… The sense of history in poets lives rawly along their nerves…” (40). Here one can find
an almost non-dual/Advaitic approach towards the perception of not simply history, but that
which gives it life: the idea of a linear timeline. Walcott seems to suggest that despite being in
the present moment, the poet lives just as realistically in the memories of the past. This tendency,
of course, can be detected universally, as painful memories that took place decades ago can still
haunt a person, birthing the beating heart of a lifelong trauma. Walcott’s almost fluid, flexible
and in many contexts, universal conception of history offers the creation of a new identity as a
solution to the sufferings caused by identity crisis. Walcott wants to build a mythology for the
island that is made up of its own unique combination of historical personalities and events in
order to help St. Lucia in its ongoing effort to establish its all-encompassing, postcolonial
identity (Milholm 1). However, this attempt of recreating the individual or collective self is not
rooted in denial or suppression, and that is precisely where Walcott’s art of sublimation shines.
His curation of a living fantasy to replace the wounded past includes focusing on what went
right, but more curiously, also a deep form of acceptance. Acceptance, being the last stage to
process any form of trauma, then functions in the poet’s work in both psychological and literary
synchronicity. In order to create the complex, heterogeneous identity of St. Lucia, Walcott
emphasizes the positive, calm discovery and acceptance of everything that has been, is, and will
be (Milholm 1). Walcott attempts to utilize the colonial era's resulting cultural diversity as the

basis for the development of a fresh and distinct Caribbean identity (Douillet 7). Though In
Walcott's cross-cultural fertilization agenda, the significance of the colonial past or the long-term
disempowerment of people of African origin are neither minimized nor disregarded (Douillet 7).
This movement towards the creation of a new identity for the Caribbeans functions as healing
agent for a nation suffering from identity crisis and offers hope for an authentic ground for a true
Identity.
Brathwaite has a more confrontational attitude towards history. According to him, one obstacle
for modern-day African males opposing tyranny is their unwillingness to face the past (Casas
10). Brathwaite often sees his creation as a power that can be used to change the collective for
the better. He doesn’t consider discarding or altering history. Rather the poet mirrors and
counters the influence of history by transforming his writing into an equally powerful energy.
Brathwaite asserts that his writing is a historical force that can never be subdued (Casas 4).
Brathwaite’s conception of history imparts a lot of importance on the Caribbeans embracing their
African roots. Thus, Brathwaite’s position can be seen as an attempt to repossess a culturally
sound identity in the Caribbean. It is of necessity that this identity subsumes the African side of
West Indian existence (Glenn 20). This idea became more pronounced and realized within him
During the poet’s habitat in Ghana. Over the course of eight years, he gradually came to
understand the community, the cultural whole, and the individual's place in the tribe and in
society. Gradually, he began to feel a sense of identification with these people, his true, existing
diviners. He eventually came to see a parallel between them and his past (Brathwaite, 48). By
embracing his African roots Brathwaite envisioned the attainment of a sense of wholeness that
can ail not just his personal but the collective Caribbean suffering that emerges from identity
crisis. As a historian, a pamphleteer, and a poet, Brathwaite has made it his mission to break free

from the rootlessness and isolation of colonialism as his brooding and gradual but persistent
struggle to achieve "wholeness" out of the ruins of the past is the clearest manifestation of this
understanding, especially of his historical place and role in society (King 130).
3. Conclusion
The sublimation that occurs in Walcott and Brathwaite’s works is often not just a desensitizing
spray on the wound but a healing ointment. Along with addressing the origin of the pain, it
further seeks to cure the hurt, discarding faint scars that remain as reminders. Their works have
let bloom many miracles upon the soul of the Caribbean people. Though soothing the collective
angst that they carry as a nation is probably the noblest of them all. Contrasting with Freud, Jung
saw the potential of transformation through sublimation and it can be argued that so did Walcott
and Brathwaite. Through creations which took a lifetime to produce, they didn’t descend into
meaningless regret or hate but shined shrines of light into the hearts of their people. They, while
mending the wounds of history and nurturing the suffering of identity crisis, also pointed to a
path of transformation using hope for progress through a better future. Their ability to see
blessed inside the damned can’t be versed better than in the Nobel acceptance speech of Walcott
himself:
Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which
took its symmetry for granted when it was whole. The glue that fits the pieces is the
sealing of its original shape. It is such a love that reassembles our African and Asiatic
fragments, the cracked heirlooms whose restoration shows its white scars.

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