This abstract outlines a plan for a final paper examining the interplay of myth, water, and colonial legacies in Caribbean literature. Specifically, how does aquatic poetics in Caribbean narratives serve as a metaphor for trauma, resistance, and environmental exploitation stemming from colonial histories?
Caribbean literature often emerges from a history of colonialism, slavery, and migration, where the sea symbolizes both connection and violence, reflecting the region’s complex identity formation post-1492 (Brathwaite, 1993). This context shapes narratives that blend Indigenous, African, and European elements to challenge dominant histories.
The primary text is Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch (2020), which centers on Aycayia, a Taino woman cursed into a mermaid form. Captured by modern fishermen, she navigates exploitation and love in a fictional Caribbean island setting. The story spans timelines, intertwining myth with contemporary issues like tourism and ecological damage, highlighting ongoing colonial impacts.
This paper aims to explore how Roffey employs aquatic imagery and mythological elements to critique colonialism, gender violence, and environmental harm, demonstrating their interconnectedness in Caribbean contexts. By analyzing the text, it examines ways literature reclaims marginalized voices and histories.
I argue that through metaphor, shifting perspectives, and symbolism in The Mermaid of Black Conch, Roffey portrays water as a site of slow violence and spiritual migration, where Aycayia’s mermaid transformation embodies Indigenous resistance against colonial erasure and patriarchal control; this reveals how environmental exploitation mirrors human commodification, extending trauma across generations in Caribbean literature.
Key literary devices include metaphor (e.g., water as memory), shifting perspectives (diary entries and multiple voices), and symbolism (the mermaid as feminist reclamation).
The paper engages with Leighan Renaud’s concept of aquatic poetics (2025), Kamau Brathwaite’s nation language theory (1993), Mimi Sheller’s critique of tourism (2003), Jutta Schamp’s postcolonial myth reconfiguration (2024), and Rob Nixon’s slow violence framework (2011).
In conclusion, this analysis underscores literature’s role in confronting Caribbean legacies, paving the way for broader discussions on decolonial narratives.
(Word count: 312, excluding references)
References
- Brathwaite, K. (1993) ‘History of the Voice’, in Roots. University of Michigan Press.
- Nixon, R. (2011) Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press.
- Renaud, L. (2025) ‘“I Have Seen the Sea”: Caribbean Aquatic Poetics in Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch’, Humanities, vol. 14, no. 7.
- Roffey, M. (2020) The Mermaid of Black Conch. Peepal Tree Press.
- Schamp, J. (2024) ‘“Does My Voice Count?”: The Reconfiguration of Myth and Gender in Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch’, Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies, vol. 12, no. 2.
- Sheller, M. (2003) ‘The Caribbean Tourist Economy’, in Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies. Routledge.
