Derek Alton Walcott wrote the play “Ti-Jean and His Brothers” in New York in 1957, born January 23rd, 1930, Saint Lucia and died March 17th, 2017). Derek Walcott is a West Indian poet and playwright noted for works that explore the Caribbean cultural experience. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992.Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1957) is a West Indian folktale about brothers who seek to overpower the Devil. The play is a folk fable about the struggle against colonialism and it incorporates the African storytelling tradition and St Lucian rituals like the Christmas black mass dances.
Analysis:
Ti-Jean, Mi-Jean, and Gros Jean, three poverty-stricken Caribbean young men who live on a mountain with their deeply religious mother. Gros Jean has the muscle but not the brains, and Mi-Jean has the brains but always has his head in the clouds. As a result, neither boy has what it takes to provide for the family. Meanwhile, Ti-Jean, the youngest, sits around all day doing nothing. While their mother laments the family’s poverty and lack of food, she believes that God will eventually provide for them. They are all faced with obstacles they must conquer to advance. As they get further on their journey, themes within the play become more and more evident as some characters are more than just that. One evening, the family hears a strange noise outside their hut. It is the Bolom, the ghost of an aborted fetus and a messenger of the Devil. He tells the family that the Devil has a challenge for the brothers. Longing to feel human emotion, the Devil that even one of the brothers would be able to make him angry. The Devil promises to grant the one to do so wealth and property. Each boy the Devil makes angry will be devoured by him.
And so it begins, Gros Jean, being the oldest, is the first to leave home to take on the Devil’s challenge. Before he leaves, his mother reminds him to trust in God, who has created all things. Gros Jean insists that he already knows this. As he walks through the forest on his way to meet the Devil, Gros Jean comes across Frog and exclaims at how God could make such ugly creatures. Walcott’s choice to narrate the play from the point of view of a frog is a nod to traditional fables, many of which incorporate the points of view of animals. Additionally, the three brothers also embody traditional fabular archetypes.
A theme that becomes evident here is pride vs humility. Gros Jean is the strong but dumb warrior, while Mi-Jean is the smart but impractical dreamer. These characterizations set readers up to understand how these traits will work both for and against the brothers throughout the play. Soon after, Gros Jean meets the Old Man and asks him what the quickest path to success is. The Old Man tells Gros Jean that the only thing that matters is money, and that the fastest way to acquire that is to go and work for the Devil. The Old Man gives Gros Jean directions to a plantation that the Devil owns. After two days working on the plantation, Gros Jean has received neither a minute of rest nor a cent of pay. Frustrated, he stops counting sugar cane for a moment to take a smoke break.
The Devil, disguised as the Planter, comes up to him and asks why he is taking a break when lunch hour is over. Gros Jean explains that he is tired, and the Planter encourages him to rest, while passive-aggressively implying that Gros Jean should be working, after all, the more Gros Jean works, the more the Planter earns. The Planter continually addresses Gros Jean by the wrong name, and eventually, this upsets Gros Jean so much that he blows up at the planter. In losing his temper, he loses the challenge to the Devil. Walcott’s described the Devil’s face as “powdery” which may be a subtle reference to whiteness but Walcott associates the Devil with whiteness in several ways. Additionally, Ti-Jean’s mother’s faith in God, despite her difficult circumstances, is Walcott’s first mention of faith in the play, setting the precedent for belief in God to become an important theme of the play, colonialism, and racism. Being the 2nd born, MiJean is the brother who has to go and face the Devil next. Leaving home, Mi-Jean also comes across a Frog in the forest and, like his older brother, insults the animal. Mi-Jean also meets the Old Man, who recognizes him. The Old Man tells Mi-Jean that everyone knows about him because of his intellectual prowess. As Mi-Jean soaks up the praise, the Devil goes behind a bush and removes his Old Man’s mask and replaces it with the Planter’s.
The Planter asks Mi-Jean if he has caught the goat the Planter asked him to catch, and Mi-Jean responds that he has. But the goat is loose again, and Mi-Jean must recapture it. As he does so, the Planter begins to explain to Mi-Jean the best way to tie down a captured goat. Mi-Jean becomes frustrated at the Planter for this explanation. Sensing a way to provoke Mi-Jean, the Planter starts a discussion about how animals and humans have equal intellectual capacity. Mi-Jean, who prides himself on his intellect, soon loses his temper, and in doing so, loses the challenge with the Devil. Finally, it is Ti-Jean’s turn to confront the Devil. The mother worries for her youngest son, who has neither the strength of the oldest son nor the intelligence of the middle son. However, Ti-Jean assures her that he has faith, the most powerful tool of all. As he walks through the forest to meet the Devil, Ti-Jean also encounters Frog and stops to talk with him. Frog warns him that the Old Man is the Devil in disguise. His doing so ensured that when Ti-Jean encounters the Old Man just moments later, he would be prepared, and wouldn’t fall for any of the Old Man’s attempted tricks. He tells the Old Man that he knows he is the Devil, causing the Devil to take off his Old Man’s mask. Ti-Jean is afraid to look at the real face of the Devil, and so the Devil disguises himself as the Planter. He tasks Ti-Jean with capturing the same goat that his brothers were tasked with capturing. Ti-Jean not only captures but also castrates the goat so it won’t escape again. Slightly frustrated, the Planter tries to keep his cool and asks Ti-Jean to count all of the sugar cane on the plantation. Instead of doing this, Ti-Jean orders the plantation workers to burn everything down. Later that night, Ti-Jean meets up with the Devil again, who is drunk. Ti-Jean also pretends to be drunk, and the Devil confesses to him that he misses being an angel. When Ti-Jean tells the Devil that he burned down the plantation, the Devil loses his temper, and Ti-Jean wins the challenge. At first, the Devil doesn’t want to honor his side of the bargain, but the Bolom helps Ti-Jean convince the Devil to play fair. The Devil grants the Bolom life, and God honors Ti-Jean by giving him a place on the moon.
World Of The Play:
In 1957, the island of St. Lucia was a British colony and part of the Windward Islands group. On March 25th a strike commenced at what has been described as a sugar refinery and a banana plantation. To prevent a potential rise in crime or violence, the Governor requested assistance as he felt that a show of force would keep matters quiet. However, the nearest Royal Navy ship was three days steam from St. Lucia. In March 1957, HMCS Micmac was on exercise in the Caribbean with the other ships of the 1st Canadian Destroyer Squadron. In the last day or two of March, the ship was ordered to sail to Castries, port and capital of St. Lucia. The orders were to assist the local authorities in keeping order in view of the strike and possible riot by the banana plantation workers. The ship arrived on the 31st and after consultation with the island's Governor the Captain learned that the possibility of violence was remote at that time. On the chance that they might be needed, the ship's company was divided into three companies who would rotate on stand-by duty. After several days of quiet, the Governor called the ship and advised that the strikers were amassing at the edge of town. As the ship's company prepared to proceed ashore an urgent message arrived from Naval Headquarters in Ottawa. The message stated that on no account was an armed force to be landed without prior approval of Naval Headquarters. Despite the order, the ship's company and took up their present position. Whether it was this display of force or other reason, the strikers did not enter the town and the ship's company returned to the ship. On 8 April the ship left St. Lucia after the Royal Navy had arrived.
General elections were held in Saint Lucia on 18 September 1957 for the eight-seat Legislative Council. New constitutional arrangements came into force in March 1956. They provided for elected majorities in both the Legislative and Executive Councils, for the appointment of elected members as Ministers and for the recognition of the Executive Council as the principal instrument of policy; they also provided for the appointment by the Governor in his discretion of three nominated members to the Legislative Council and one to the Executive Council. Saint Lucia was inhabited by the Arawak and Kalinago Caribs before European contact in the early 16th century. It was colonized by the British and French in the 17th century and was the subject of several possession changes until 1814, when it was ceded to the British by France for the final time. In 1958, St. Lucia joined the short-lived semi-autonomous West Indies Federation. Saint Lucia was an associated state of the United Kingdom from 1967 to 1979 and then gained full independence on February 22, 1979. Saint Lucia was constantly fought over by the British and the French during the 18th century. During the Battle of the Caribbean, a German boat attacked and sank two British ships in Castries harbor on 9 March 1942.
Increasing self-government has marked St Lucia's 20th-century history. A 1924 constitution gave the island its first form of representative government, with a minority of elected members in the previously all-nominated legislative council. Universal adult suffrage was introduced in 1951, and elected members became a majority of the council. Ministerial government was introduced in 1956, and in 1958 St. Lucia joined the shortlived West Indies Federation, a semiautonomous dependency of the United Kingdom. When the federation collapsed in 1962, following Jamaica's withdrawal, a smaller federation was briefly attempted. After the second failure, the United Kingdom and the six windward and leeward islands Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, Antigua, St. Kitts and Nevis and Anguilla, and St. Lucia developed a novel form of cooperation called associated statehood.
By 1957, bananas had exceeded sugar as the major export cropfor the country. As an associated state of the United Kingdom from 1967 to 1979, St. Lucia had full responsibility for internal self-government but left its external affairs and defense responsibilities to the United Kingdom. This interim arrangement ended on February 22, 1979, when St. Lucia achieved full independence. St. Lucia continues to recognize Queen Elizabeth II as titular head of state and is an active member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The island continues to cooperate with its neighbors through the Caribbean community and common market (CARICOM), the East Caribbean Common Market (ECCM), and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Ti-Jean does not make revolution for the sake of Black revolution but rather his revolution was against the colonizer and to emphasize a West Indian identity that does not mimic the colonizer nor the power Gros Jean displayed.
