The Book of Night Women

“But sooner or later this place burn the England out of an England man. Some people, like the redcoat soldiers, fight and fight and not even see that they lose from the day they dock in Montego Bay. That is England a man scratching out when him balls itch, that is England he spitting out whenever tobacco juice leave him mouth.”

This quote references fire, foreshadowing the fact that the rebellions use fire to try to burn England out of the land itself. The fact that England cannot maintain its character in the colonies implies the inevitable failure of colonization. England cannot turn the world into England because the world will transform it.

“Homer say, Pretty gal go a river and see herself in water. Pretty gal drown when she go down to kiss herself. Lilith hiss at what Homer say, but she mark that Homer say it.”

Homer alludes to the Greek myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with his reflection and died. This quote is representative of Lilith and Homer’s relationship in that Lilith refuses to acknowledge Homer’s wisdom out loud but internalizes it.

“So when me can read chain goin’ break? You is one perplexing n*****, Homer, anybody ever tell you?”

This is Lilith’s response when Homer tells her reading can give her power. Lilith’s rhetorical questions express both her disbelief that reading matters and her sense of humor. Homer and Lilith joke with each other as a form of connection and a way to find joy under the confines of slavery.

“If the massa find out, you dead.—If the massa supper spoil, you dead, what be the difference?”

Homer’s response to Lilith’s warning shows her philosophy of how little they have to lose. The repetition shows the ridiculousness of both statements and the fact that no matter what they do, white people will kill them.

“Nobody look like no slave. Nobody slouch, nobody looking down at the ground, nobody wrapping her arms up to make themself smaller, and nobody hiding save for Hippolyta. Lilith feel herself straightening up.”

At Lilith’s first meeting in the cave, she notices that the women are different when they are not visible and beholden to enslavers. She uses parallel sentence structure to emphasize the difference in the way they look when they can be themselves. Lilith stands up taller, emulating the women before her without even trying to.

“Just a drop more sugar, darling, is all he need to say and she carry that one last word for the whole morning, never mind that he call her a backward n***** cunt when she take too long and the tea too hot.”

This quote demonstrates the complicated nature of Lilith’s feelings toward Wilson. Searching for love in everything, Lilith clings to one kind word even after three cruel ones. This reflects Lilith’s ability to love people who do evil things.

“Lilith don’t tell nobody so nobody could warn her that she thinking crazy. Lilith don’t want to accept things as them be, like a good negro.”

Lilith twists logic to come to the conclusion that if she does not say her thoughts aloud to anyone then she will not be brought back to reality. She believes she will find love and she sees this belief as resistance.

“Maybe is ’cause you part white, that why you not understanding black talk. Or maybe ’cause you part white you think you must always get what you want too.”

Homer tries to deconstruct Lilith’s identity by attributing certain characteristics to her whiteness. In doing this Homer contributes to Lilith’s confusion and insecurity about her identity.

“Every time she scream it vanish into the Christmas.”

Lilith screams while she is attacked on Christmas by Johnny-jumpers. Her scream vanishing into Christmas is symbolic of the erasure of enslaved people’s pain. No one can hear her beg for help because on one day each year, white people let them celebrate a Christian holiday.

“Lilith tell herself that she don’t care, she goin’ change her heart to wood. But she perplex. Is hard work after all, hardening heart for n***** and then softening it every time Massa Humphrey pass by.”

Lilith describes the psychological difficulty of her position as an enslaved person. On the one hand, she wants to respond to the objectifying conditions of her subjugation by adopting a position of steely indifference. On the other hand, she must also be soft and approachable.

“There be mutton and pork to roast, ham to bake, beef and fish to stew, chicken, duck and goose to fry, and crabs to pickle. There be bread yam to sear, plantains to boil, pawpaw sauce to stir, potatoes to steam, carrots and cabbage to chop. There be chocolate batter for cake, flour and corn for pudding, cheese to slice and wine bottle to wash off from the cellar dust and rum and whiskey to get from the liquor merchant.”

This quote establishes the setting in that it shows what white people were eating in Jamaica at this time. The parallel structure without a specified subject exemplifies the dynamic of slavery.

“She think of white flesh and black flesh, that really be brown flesh by blood and the two flesh melt into one flesh that don’t know colour. Then Lilith wonder if she dreaming because dreaming is one thing God never allow negro to do.”

James personifies flesh to demonstrate the ridiculousness of a society entirely structured based on skin color. Lilith tries to make sense of a world that does not make sense and in doing so finds herself dreaming, imagining things that are not there. Dreams represent hope, individuality, and imagination, all of which are a threat to the enslavers. Yet Lilith begins to discover that these are things they cannot truly take away.

“Seem that if baby get left in manger he would scratch up, bite up and dead by the third day. But white people think this be the greatest thing. The baby grow up and they kill him, and white people think that be even greater. It make plenty sense that white people would get so much mirth and joy out of this ’cause nobody kill for fun like backra. Preacher tell n***** that God is man and baby. Then he say that God is baby in December but man only four month later. But then he say God is father and he is son and he is spirit. That sound like he breed himself to get himself, then kill himself. White man God perplexing like the white man.”

Lilith wonders about the story of Jesus and in using logic she notes both the hypocrisy and strange consistency that white people show through their religion. White people love killing, so it makes sense that they celebrate Jesus’s death, but the rest does not make sense to her. Lilith often uses the word “perplex” when she is confused or senses hypocrisy.

“She brought out the absolute devil in Master Wilson and he’ll never forgive her for letting him show it.”

Quinn explains to Homer how Wilson feels toward Lilith after the New Year’s Ball. This exemplifies the white people’s logic: He says that Lilith brought out the devil in Wilson rather than that Wilson acted like the devil. By using the word devil, he acknowledges the evil Wilson does, but he still puts the blame on Lilith.

“The negro scream that white people don’t hear because it never stop late lunch or early afternoon tea. A negro scream be like a pig scream. A negro scream be like a dog whistle. A negro scream be like wind. Soon she stop scream.”

James uses simile to express the dehumanization of enslaved people. Black people’s screams are ignored to the extent that it seems like white people cannot hear them at all. The scream is compared to the sound of an animal, then the sound of an object, and finally the background sounds of the natural world.

“He nah remember ten, fifteen year from now when he same one whipping de life out o’ me.”

At Coulibre, Dulcey says this to Lilith as she breastfeeds a white child, exemplifying the hypocrisy that is slavery. Black people give life to white people, care for them, feed them, build for them, and farm for them, yet white people abuse and kill them. These conditions naturally lead to rebellion. 

“I need to be fucked. Rutted like a common cow. Does that shock you? Are you quite horrified? Do you find me improper? Why should you? You made me this way and now I’m nothing but a leper to you. Is that what you want to hear? Do you really wish to know how base I can be, Humphrey? I’m sick of feeling like an orphan—even a whore’s lot is better then mine. I would kill my family again to swap grief for pleasure!”

Isobel begs Wilson for sex, using a simile to compare herself to an animal, and then asks him a series of rhetorical questions meant to reveal the paradox of womanhood in that men want sex but look down upon women who give it to them. In the final line, she reveals the extent of her selfishness by saying that she would kill her family again to feel better.

“1702: Rebellion in the east county, not far from Montpelier. 1717: Twelve rebellion in the east and west, so much so that the king send more militia to the colony and they didn’t leave. 1722: Slave rebellion in Montego Bay so bad that the governor have to send for the Mosquito Indians to fight the negroes. By now, the negroes take to fleeing to the hills and joining the Maroons. Maroon take residence and beat the British so much they turn fool. 1734: Rebellion. The backra sack Nanny Town. 1738: Rebellion. 1739: Rebellion. 1740: Rebellion. 1745: The plot to kill all the whites. 1746: Rebellion. 1758: Rebellion. 1760: The worsest rebellion under Tacky—sixty whites and four hundred blacks get killed. 1765: Rebellion. 1766: Rebellion. 1771: Militia discover a new slave plot and find there be five hundred negroes plotting. 1777: Rebellion. 1782: Rebellion.”

The parallel structure of each sentence reflects the cyclical nature of slavery in Jamaica. Every few years, enslaved people rebel as an inevitable reaction to the conditions of slavery. Slavery nevertheless continues, so rebellion follows suit.

“And if it’s freedom yer looking fer, I have half a mind to send you to heaven, how’s that fer true freedom?”

Quinn says this to Lilith when he finds her outside at night. He threatens to kill her and in doing so assumes she will go to heaven for an eternal paradise. This reflects Quinn’s contrasting feelings for Lilith: He thinks highly of her, but he will kill her before letting her be free.

“That he want to see your pleasure and your loving and your tears or that he can’t stand to see the scars on you back that he cause? What it mean when he hold you gentle-like and whisper word that not be word and can’t eat unless you eat too and promise to teach you to ride? What it mean when lass turn into luv, then lovey, then Lilith?”

Lilith asks herself rhetorical questions in part because she cannot bear to answer them. In the final line she uses alliteration to explain the escalation of their relationship.

“Lilith know she can hate a massa, a Massa Quinn or even a Massa Robert. But she can’t hate a Robert, or a Humphrey or a Isobel, for that matter.”

When Quinn asks Lilith to call him by his first name, she begins to worry that she will not be able to do so without losing sight of her hatred for enslavers. This shows the importance of names and titles in racial segregation. It lets everyone more easily look past the other’s humanity.

“And the only person that make her smile is a white devil that used to whip her. She want to hate him for taking her into the room of white woman feelings because a n***** know that sooner or later something or someone goin’ remind her that she black.”

Lilith sees happiness as a feeling for white women because as a Black woman, it can never last. James uses juxtaposition in the first sentence to emphasize the polar opposite emotions that Quinn has made Lilith feel at different times.

“What can a n*****woman do but endure? What can me do but tell the story? Who is there when we recall great womens? My name write in blood and me don’t answer to it much.”

Lovey asks rhetorical questions to show the lack of options that Black women have outside of surviving. She reflects on the fact that she was born from a long line of violence, from a mother and a father who have both killed, and it is difficult to consider the pain of the women who came before her.