Structurally, Walcott creolizes the epic genre and makes it his own. The Homeric epics deal with battles and honor, which reflects the culture of the ancient Greeks. Walcott does the same; it reflects the experience of the newly empowered people of the declining empire and recounts the struggle of its own tribe. The reader often comes across a reference that echoes something read in the classic epics, and it would be unfair of Walcott to expect the reader to refrain from these associations and allusions made in the text. By expressing in Omeros the identity struggles in the Caribbean, Walcott also expresses the hybridity of the islands through these associations. The names that Walcott decides to use in his epic are not only inspired by Homeric works, but also represent the colonial space where slave owners gave their slaves names from their countries of origin. This reflects the Caribbean, as it too is a collection of associations rather than a culture in its own right. Walcott is among many others, like Virgil and James Joyce, who adapted the classic epics. Classically, an epic is generally a long narrative poem, on a serious subject, and centered on a hero who adopts a larger-than-life persona. There are also other indications such as an opening in medias res, an invocation to the Muse, concerns about the fate of a nation, extended comparisons, divine intervention and sometimes a visit to the underworld. Walcott's Omeros contains some of these elements and is divided into seven books containing sixty-four chapters. The opening and closing two books are set in Saint Lucia, books three through five encompass African, European and North American influences coalescing in the Caribbean and on the island of Saint Lucia. Each ...... middle of paper ......nts of cultural ritual ceremonies that have survived in Saint Lucia. Walcott shows how his epic is different from the traditional epic and writes: "It was the cry on which every odyssey pivots, that silent cry for a reef, or a familiar bird, not the battle cry, not the tangled intrigues of a fishing net, but when a vague rhythm with his grave, a canoe with a coffin, once this parallel is crossed, and erases the line of master and slave... And I return with him, Homeros, my nigger, my captain, his armor shining with happiness! (30.2.7-17)It is the landscape and Achilles has found his happiness and appreciates the only home he knows and what binds him to this homeland. Walcott took the framework of the epic and gave the voice and struggle of the Caribbean. Works Cited Walcott, Derek. Omeros. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1991. Print.