Andrew Hurst-- Colonization: Mind and Body

Andrew Hurst

            In the middle part of Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women, the slaves are given a New Year’s church service. The narrator calls special attention to the behavior of some of the slaves at this service:

“Preacher man tell them that the Bible say them to stand firm in they suffering ‘cause that is they lot for being the cursed son of Noah. That Jesus don’t care for slavery but for the heart of the slave. That Jesus goin’ reward them in heaven for being a good nigger (149).”

This part of the novel is especially poignant given the foreign quality of Christianity to the slaves, coupled with its familiarity to an American audience of the text. Through this irony, James urges his readers to look at Christianity with another perspective. One can conclude through careful reading of the passage that the process of effective colonization is not only physical, but also mental, and, for the enslaved, Christianity is a tool of oppression.

By telling the enslaved that they must “stand firm in they suffering,” this nurtures docility for the generation; however, if this mindset is passed down through generations to come, the plantation owners have assured themselves a superior standing through their slaves’ collective fear of divine wrath, or loss of Jesus’s “reward in heaven.” Indeed, even after the preacher leaves, “some still be singing the hymn (149).” A willingness to be colonized is thus suggested here, and this is not the only place in the novel in which it is.

This tendency towards colonization is comparative in this novel to Lilith’s infatuation with Humphrey. She desires for him to take her as a mistress so that she may gain favor among the rest the house slaves, despite being used for only sex. Furthermore, the acceptance of the term “nigger” not only here but throughout the text, even as Homer offers the alternative “Black woman” in direct juxtaposition to “nigger” on page 123, suggests a similar complacency by the slaves.

By comparing these three colonizing acts—the acceptance of a god that encourages the obedience of slaves, the desire to be taken for one’s body, and the acceptance of a pejorative—the reader can theorize that James includes them with the intent to examine the nature of slave attitudes in Jamaica and the American South. It may be too early in the novel to conclude what James’s message is, however. If Lilith joins the group of Night Women, as the reader should naturally expect from the title and her name, and plots against the Whites, the message will be one of empowerment from the bowels of subservience. For now, though, it is enough to conclude that the entirety of the quoted passage seeks to emphasize the strains of colonization that permeate every aspect of the the slaves’ lives.