“The Spoiler’s Return” by Walcott talks about the corruption in Trinidadian society. Examine the poem and critically analyse it.

Spoiler’s meditations on the current political and social situation in the Caribbean bring out the predatory instincts of those in power, whom he calls “sharks.” These sharks thrive by exploiting the “small-fry” or ordinary people. The line “crab climbing crab-back, in a crab-quarrel” is wonderfully evocative of people using other people to attain power at somebody else’s expense. The marine imagery used in the passage to describe bureaucrats and politicians as sharks and crabs accentuates their influence.

If the Caribbean is an area of pristine, Edenic beauty with “clear coral rocks,” these people are like ominous dark shadows across it. Spoiler hints that commoners aren’t any better off under their chosen representatives than they were under a colonial government. The “colour and attire” of those in power may have changed but the exploitative mentality is still the same. The change in attire is indicated by the word “shirt-jacs,” a name for a shirt-like garment which originated in Guyana in 1969 and which is worn for official occasions.

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