Brother Man

Roger Mais
Renaisha Hood

Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 3
Roger Mais ............................................................................................................................................. 3 Brother Man .................................................................................................................................................. 11

Plot Overview .......................................................................................................................... 12

Introduction
Roger Mais

Roger Mais (August 11, 1905 Kingston June 21, 1955 Kingston) was a Jamaican journalist, novelist, poet, and playwright. He was born to a middle-class family in Kingston, Jamaica. By 1951, Mais had won ten first prizes in West Indian literary competitions. His integral role in the development of political and cultural nationalism is evidenced in his being awarded the high honor of the Order of Jamaica in 1978. Mais launched his career as a journalist and contributor for the weekly newspaper, Public Opinion from 1939 to 1952, which was associated with the People's National Party. He also wrote several plays, reviews, and short stories for the newspaper Focus and the Jamaica Daily Gleaner, focusing his articles on social injustice and inequality. He used this approach to reach his local audience and to primarily push for a national identity and anticolonialism. Mais has published over a hundred short stories, where most can be found in Public Opinion and Focus. Other stories are also collected in Face and Other Stories and And Most of All Man, published in the 1940s. Mais's play, George William Gordon, was also published in the 1940s, focusing on the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865. It played an important role in the rehabilitation of the eponymous

character, who was in conventional colonial history described as a rebel and traitor, but who would be proclaimed, on the centenary of the rebellion, a National Hero. In 1944, he wrote the anti-British satirical tirade "Now We Know," criticizing British colonial rule. It resulted in incarceration of sixth months in the Spanish Town Penitentiary. This period of imprisonment was instrumental in the development of his first novel, The Hills Were Joyful Together(1953), a work focused on working-class life in the Kingston of the 1940s. Why I Love and Leave Jamaica, an article written in 1950 also stirred many emotions. It labeled the bourgeoisie and the philistines as shallow and criticized their impacting role on art and culture. In addition, Mais's wrote over thirty stage and radio plays. The plays Masks and Paper Hats and Hurricane were performed in 1943, Atlanta in Calydon in 1950; The Potter's Field was published in Public Opinion(1950) and The First Sacrifice in Focus(1956. Mais left for England in 1952. Mais ventured to Europe-London, Paris, and the south of Franceto fulfill himself; he took an alias, Kingsley Croft, and showcased an art exhibition in Paris. His artwork also appeared on the covers of his novels. After he left Jamaica, his novel The Hills Were Joyful Together had been accepted for publishing by Jonathan Cape in London. Soon afterwards, Brother Man was published. Brother Man(1954) was a sympathetic

exploration of the emergent Rastafari movement. Black Lightning was then published the year after. While Mais's first two novels had urban settings, his third novel, Black Lightning(1955) centered on an artist living in the countryside. In 1955 Mais was forced to return to Jamaica after falling ill with cancer; he died the same year at age 50. His short stories were collected in a volume entitled Listen, The Wind, thirty-two years after his death. Mais's novels have been republished posthumously several times, an indication of his continuing importance to Caribbean literary history. He also had an influence on younger writers of the preindependence period, notably John Hearne.

Novels The Hills Were Joyful Together (1953) is written in the style of a narrative. It takes place in a "yard" consisting of individuals and families living in a confinement of shacks shaped squarely, leaving a yard in the center. In this yard, daily and public life of the tenement unfolds. Mais took inspiration from Trinidadian C.L.R James's novels Minty Alley and Triumph, which illustrated "yard" life. Mais's The Hills Were Joyful Together is basically a depiction of slum life, portraying the upset of poverty in these yards. Mais claimed that he was "concerned with setting

down objectively the hopes, fears, [and] frustrations of these people". He wanted the novel to be "essentially realistic, even to the point of seeming violent, rude, expletive, functional, primitive, raw". Brother Man (London, Cape, 1954) stood as a statement of protest, and also a major contributor to a nativist aesthetic. Mais was interested in the creole, the political reconstructionism of the 1930s, and the sociocultural problems of the "yards." There was a need for a nativist aesthetic. There was talk about a renewed self-government and the formation of a West Indian federation, provoking writers and intellectuals from the region to reflect on this optimistic future and to search for forms to give it a local face. Brother Man was Mais's contribution to this movement. The novel is situated in Kingston's slums. It portrays the daily condition of poverty of the society. Kamau Braithwaite refers to this as the "jazz novel", where the "words are notes that develop into riffs, themes, and 'choruses,' themselves part of a call/response design based on the aesthetic principle of solo/duo/trio improvisatons, ith return, at the end of each 'chorus,' to the basic group/ensemble community." Unlike the first two novels, Black Lightning (1955) takes place in the countryside. The novel is centered around Jake, a blacksmith and a sculptor. He looks to Samson as a model of a man's independence and decides to carve a

structure of Samson in mahogony. But when his wife elopes with another man, Jake's finished sculpture comes out as a blinded Samson leaning on a little boy. Jake is then blinded by lightning and has to depend on his friends to live. The tragic discovery of his dependence on humanity eventually drives Jake to his suicidal death.

Political Involvement In 1938, major riots and uprising broke out all throughout the Caribbean islands (primarily in Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad). In Jamaica, riots emerged in the 1938 Montego Bay and among the banana loaders, firemen, and sanitation workers in Kingston. It was in Kingston, where Mais was headed to volunteer to help quell the rioting, that he had an apparent change of heart. Mais seemingly emerged with a completely alternative mindset, as explained in John Hearne's 1955 "A Personal Memoir", and took the side of the workers/rioters. Many saw this as the event that spurred Mais' political involvement. At the end of this critical year, new leaders, including Mais, appropriately emerged to direct and push for political and social changes. Roger Mais' works, which include short stories, plays, reviews, and "think pieces" among others (Brathwaite), all generally have a political undertone to some degree. He contributed to a

left-wing political newspaper called Public Opinion from 1939 to 1952 before he left Jamaica. The other writers of the post-30s had similar ambitions, a period being characterized as "a more determined and confident nationalism." His stories appeared in Public Opinion and Focus, two journalistic publications. He also published two collections, Face and Other Stories and And Most of All Man. His main concerns were social injustice/inequality and colonialism. His stories and poems have been described as "propaganda", where he illustrated poverty to the full extent. Some have gone so far as to say that his works were "weapons of war", dealt "in a long and famous stream of realism" (Norman Washington Manley). This sort of realism allowed for his readers/audience to understand the poverty in a way which was brutally honest. Examples of these works are The Hills Were Joyful Together and Brother Man. He adamantly denounced England as "exploitive", "enslaving", and disloyal and Winston Churchill for "hypocrisy and deception". Subsequently, Mais was charged with sedition and sentenced to a six-month sentence.The Jamaican public was sympathetic to his imprisonment and helped to incite controversy and public commotion. It is in this sense that Mais was able to involve Rastafarianism (link!), a Jamaican cultural movement, in his novel Brother Man, in which he is able to identify with the anticolonialism and afrocentrism of the Rastafari

movement. Arguably, another important political contribution was his work to build a national identity, and he did this by: "'nativizing' the subjects and concerns of his writing", "supplying a corrective to colonialism by ... reclaiming subverted or disregarded histories", and "gave authority to the island's language and voice" (Hawthorne). This essentially means he would intentionally present protagonists that spoke in the local dialect of Western Indian to connect with his local audience, a significant change in attitude from previous works by other authors. Mais would also include nationalist propaganda demonstrating forgotten Jamaican culture and history. Other similar influential writers of Jamaican heritage include Vera Bell, Claude Thompson, Una Marson, John Hearne, Philip Sherlock, John Figueroa, and Louise Bennet.

Influences Raised into a middle-class family with full access to cultured traditions, Mais often incorporated a romantic idea into his writings. He drew from his Western education inspirations that lead to his use of tragic, visionary, and poetic elements within books and plays. His belief in individualism and the writers freedom to pursue imagination are reflected in many of his early works. However, Mais later

recognized the tension between his colonial heritage and the nationalist movement and changed direction. By adopting a realistic stance, Mais decided to assume a literary style that would be more representative of the Caribbean national consciousness.This particular form allowed Mais to present unambiguous, direct truths about the people and culture. Many of his later novels thus portray sufferings and despairs undergone by innocent people under British rule. One inspiration that he wove into his writings sprang from the 1938 Peoples National Party that was launched by Norman Manley.Braithwaite 79 The movement aimed to grant Jamaica selfgovernment, which sparked concurrent enthusiasm within the literary field. Besides Roger Mais another author, Vic Reid also incorporated into his works Manley's ambitious drive to independence. Reids novel New Day is a historical account of Jamaica from 1865 to 1944. Like Mais, Reid finds primary sources particularly useful in modeling political messages into stories.

Mais and Caribbean Drama The 1930s was a period in which the first endeavors were made to write and introduce plays related to Caribbean life. Before the 1930s, plays were European-based, with European actors as well. Shows consisted of Romeo and Juliet and reading of Shakespearian plays, but progress towards expressing

Caribbean life was being made. The year symbolized an advance for Caribbean theatre. The desire to represent local life and history of the Caribbeans onstage were produced, and the theatres capability to entertain and to raise concerning questions were acknowledged. George William Gordon acts as a representation for the lower class, alluding to the oppressions they were forced to endure throughout the play. Because the style of George William Gordon is in play form, the scenes are meant to be performed in public. Therefore, the play not only represents the people, but also functions as a voice for the people so that their cries can be heard. The unfair court system, the low wages and their repurcussions are stated clearly in the work by anonymous persons acting as a uniting voice for the people. It forms an identity for the Black underclass majority, which was Maiss ultimate goal in his work.

Brother Man

Brother Man (1954) is a novel by Roger Mais, about a Messianic folk Rastafarian healer, 'Bra' Man' (in dialect) John Power. The plot follows the superstructure of Christ's story, with other characters resembling Mary Magdelene etc. The book is extremely significant as it is the first serious representation of Rastafarianism in literature , and Roger Mais foresaw the defining power of the Rasta movement to Jamaican society 20 years before

the era of Bob Marley and Reggae mainstream. It is also significant as an exploration of life in the Jamaican Ghetto, and how the people relate to their leaders , making them deities and throwing them away when they fail to entertain them. The novel is written in prose with a layout that is seemingly cinematic and episodic , little is done to describe the environment beyond the claustrophobic ghetto of ' The Lane' in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica.

Plot Overview
Brother Man is named after the hero, a Rastafarian living in a lane, one of the lower income communities in Kingston. I know little about Rastfarianism but from what I googled Brother Man embodied the the ideal and profile of his faith: [1]he was politically passive, non-violent and of the lower classes. Societys view of Rastafarians was, on the other hand, wholly negative in the 1950s: they were bearded drug addicts, a cult of outcasts, which the novel reflects having been written at the time. He is an informal counsellor, healer and of general help to others in the community. He took into his home a young girl, Minette, from the street when she was 17; she has been there for two years at the start of the story, filling the role of home-maker although their relationship is platonic. As the story progresses he evolves into a Christ figure, preaching love for ones fellow man above all, and suffers through the inevitable fall and crucifixion (which, being Mais, is not as symbolic as one would like).

The novel has five parts, each of which opens with a Chorus of people in the lane, echoing the Greek tragedies. Mais effectively flips their role here: this is no ideal audience, sympathetic to the characters plights, but a self-pitying group of incessant, malicious gossipers and back-biters, spurned on by their own secret terrortelling their own hunger and haltness and lameness and nightness and negation, like flies buzzing an open unremitting sore, tasting again, renewing, and giving again, the wounds they have taken of the world. Their speech is not formal but a deep Jamaican patois. As Brother Mans star rises, as he becomes more popular, draws large crowds even from the city, and his message of rebuking evil to follow after righteousness, the chorus character softens, the members are kinder, more charitable and sympathetic to others. The moon and the ocean breeze, a symbol of spiritual enlightenment and an agent of moral cleansing are elements in these scenes in contrast to part one where the chorus stands in the noisome yard where a standpipe leaks making waste in the sun-cracked green-slimed concrete cistern. When the chorus is uneasy, reverting back to its selfish behaviour, which it had never truly abandoned, the reader knows that fortunes have plummeted. There is the expected cast of characters whose stories interconnect and alternately take centre stage. Minette, the young woman taken in by Brother Man, is a caring but frustrated character. She had been a runaway from the country in Kingston with no prospects, living on the largesse of strange men until she approached Brother Man. His simple kindness helped to rebuild her self-esteem and respect

and, of course, she wishes to repay him in a fashion most familiar to her. She wanted more than anything in the world that she should be able to give him something in return for all he had done for her, that she should share his life with him, as she shared his home; in short, become his mistress, since she had never thought of asking him to marry her. And in her simple way of looking at things there was nothing at all the matter with that; men and women had lived like that all over the place, in the country and in the city alike. It didnt matter the least, it was nothing. Girlie is Papacitas live-in girlfriend, one of Mais typically strong women, physically able to hold her own against most, responsible for house and funds, holding up in spite of her mates inadequacies. Papacita is a man-abouttown, unemployed at the beginning, supported by Girlie, yet it is likely to be in another womans bed as in hers on any given night. He is her only weakness, physically as well as emotionally. Theirs is a primal relationship where Papacitas hold over her, his ability to keep some respect from her and himself after each straying episode is of violent sexual dominance. She goads him, ignores him, he attacks and the struggle continues until she is subdued. It wasnt play, either: it was all in deadly earnest. And it happened like this every time he played fast and loose with her, chasing other women. Every time he had to force her, as he was forcing her now, as he had had to force her that first time, the very first time he had taken herIt acted upon them both like whips, goading them on to a kind of sexual indulgence, that to them, of all pleasures, had not its

parallel in the world of experience. Out of bed she never hesitates to give the first blow if provoked, or respond to his physical overtures, until she is too hurt to retaliate or is goaded beyond endurance and raises the stakes. Like Mannys fight with Euphemia after she rejects his advances and Shags fatal attack on her The Hills Were Joyful Together, violence is a fixture of the twisted relationships in these communities. Jesmina is the other young woman in the novel who is taking care of her ill older sister Cordelia and her infant son. Cordelias husband has been sentenced to prison for five years, convicted of selling marijuana. Jesmina is anxious about her sisters welfare with the bread winner gone and her dress making job the sole means of support. She is determined to remain with her sister but is understandably concerned how this will affect the direction of her own life. She has a boyfriend who is obviously serious about her but she is unable to share her concerns, neglecting him for the sake of her family. The matter is worsened by Cordelias mental regression. Brother Man helps to heal her malady with home-brewed remedies and prayer, but when her baby falls ill his skills prove ineffective. He gives her money for the doctor and for the prescription she is given. Unfortunately the mental stress coupled with ardent belief in spiritual cures over science, she never buys it. Instead she seeks the help of an obeah man, a practitioner of the occult. Here again we see the tragic repercussions of the gap left by the imprisoned male family member (Surjue and Rema) and distorted religious belief (Charlotta ). Cordelias

mental instability produces an burgeoning animosity towards Brother Man, making her instrumental in his downfall as well as hers. The reader sympathises with the characters, even more so than in Hills because Mais tightens his focus on them in the overall scheme of the story. He is less enamoured with his role as prophet: gone are the random philosophical passages and deviations from the plot to develop religious themes. Instead the Chorus replaces the first to remarkable effect and the storys action more ably handles the second. The narrative flow is better: descriptions of settings are more expertly written, more necessary to the aims of the story than in Hills where it came off as merely being serviceable. Indeed I thought that Hills often read more like a play at certain points with no benefit to its style or content; instead it added a veneer of artificiality in the treatment of different story lines, with echoes of Enter, stage right! sounding in my head when each new one appeared. Brother Man shows no traces of this. In short it was a perfect ending to my reading year. I am looking forward to Black Lightning, which I may get to next month. The action takes place in a rural setting, a change from the first two novels, and Im curious to see what Mais does with his themes and character archetypes there. After that I will post a general assessment of the novels, addressing the themes he repeatedly explores from different angles. Thats the plan anyway.