The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms defines a simile as "An explicit comparison between two different things, actions, or feelings, using the words 'like' or 'as'... " (Baldick 334). In his critically acclaimed epic poem, Omeros, Derek Walcott uses similes to connect Philoctetes' shin wound to the sea as a giver and bringer of life, thus linking it to the displacement of slaves, symbolizing Philoctetes' wound as the wounds of slavery. His injury is healed when Ma Kilman picks a flower from their homeland for her medicine, signifying the return of their ancestors to their homeland. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Throughout Omeros, Walcott compares the wound on Philoctetes' shin to sea creatures, which connects him to the ocean. In this poem, the ocean is a life giver and a life bringer. It provides food and profit to Saint Lucia as fishermen catch food to eat and sell, and designates the Caribbean as a vacation spot for tourists who visit via cruise ships. Saint Lucians can also trade via liner ships. He steals Hector's life when he drives his van over the cliff on page 226, and he steals the lives of the slaves who were brought to America via slave ships. Walcott writes, “The Negro shacks / moved like a running wound, like the rusty anchor / that pierced the scab on Philoctetes' shin,” the sea-rusted anchor that took away his freedom and, metaphorically, his life (Walcott 178). He is forced to work for Plunkett instead of the sea, as he wished to do, just as slaves were brought by sea to work for American slavers. Along with the metaphorical ending of lives through stolen freedom, “records suggest that as late as 1750 one in five Africans aboard ships died” (International Museum of Slavery). The sea literally takes life, as it did with Hector, as it did with the slaves. When Philoctetes' wound is first presented, Walcott writes, "It shriveled like the corolla / of a sea urchin" (Walcott 4). Linking Philoctetes' wound to the removal of slavery, the sea urchin is a delicacy in the Caribbean; therefore they are commonly poached, just as people were driven from their homelands and devoured into American slavery (Jamaica Observer). Covered in a hard shell and painfully sharp spines, they sting when threatened (Gardner), so by first using a sea urchin to describe Philoctetes' wound, Walcott symbolizes the slaves' resistance fighting their captors. According to the Understanding Slavery Initiative, Caribbean slaves rebelled and fled or fought colonial forces, even taking control of armies and islands. However, they were eventually defeated, captured, and sold into slavery, forcing them to leave their homeland. The next two times Walcott mentions Philoctetes' wound he writes, “The sore on his shin / still unhealed, like a radiant anemone” and “The itching in the sore / tingling like the anemone's tendrils” (Walcott 9-19). This is a significant decline compared to sea urchins because anemones are "simple, soft-bodied animals that remain primarily sedentary, resembling flowers in appearance." (Gardner.) A notable change in comparison, it now symbolizes the fact that after capture, slaves went from fighting to submitting to slaveholders and colonialism. As more and more people were forced into slavery, slaveholders resorted to methods increasingly cruel and inhumane to prevent them from rebelling, including 2017.