Joyce, Walcott, and the Need for Homecoming Portrayed through Homeric Epics

In bringing two seemingly dissimilar writers together, I intend to examine the ways in which their reimaginations of a Homeric epic offer them space to understand both their discomforts and pride in their respective cultures and homelands. The plight of the Irishman and the struggles experienced in the Caribbean may occur on separate shores, but their shared significance lies in their ties to The Iliad, The Odyssey, and the common need for a homecoming that may never come to fruition. By recognizing our need for shared stories and experiences to bring life to untold issues, I find that Joyce and Walcott offer a unique contrast to each other that perfectly represents what it means to create a postcolonial work. By examining Joyce’s Ulysses alongside scenes from Walcott’s Omeros and The Odyssey: A Stage Play, I hope to demonstrate the complexity of the postcolonial narrative and the strength poured into these narratives that can create such individualistic works that are fused together by the shared desire for homecoming.