Many Caribbean writers have sought to address the 'deep amnesiac blow,' so powerfully evoked by Walcott, by attempting to remember and re-write the various histories which have shaped the region. Wilson Harris's engagement with History, however, requires us to understand that the 'amnesiac blow' may have generated deeper and more profound instances of 'forgetfulness'. Locked into a way of seeing the world which relies entirely on 'realism' as the dominant interpretive framework, Harris suggests, has resulted in a binary view of oppressor and oppressed. There are omens and clues scattered throughout all histories and embedded in all cultures which we must be alert to if we are to refuse the relentless repetitions of what Harris calls the 'conquistadorial' impulse. Some artists, therefore, were involved in associations, intuitive associations, that broke away from static linearities.
Intuition arises from the unconscious into the subconscious and the conscious.
Intuition is an age-old impulse of neglected traditions and may be found in ancient myths. There are people who tend nowadays to dismiss myth as irrelevant or as a lie. They ignore the profound evolving and self-critical textures of myth and they pursue a realistic line. Such realism is, however, one-sided. It has taken decades to bring people around the globe to acknowledge the ravages of global warming.