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Act 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ti-Jean and His Brothers, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Pride vs. Humility
Colonialism and Racism
Capitalism and Dehumanization
The Power of Faith
Summary
Analysis
The sun rises the next day on a cross marked “Gros Jean.” Mi-Jean is walking quickly past the grave when Frog approaches, asking if Mi-Jean is going to join his brother. After all, according to Frog, Mi-Jean is “a man’s size now.” The Old Man comes up to Mi-Jean in the forest and greets him by name. Upon seeing him, Mi-Jean recalls his mother’s parting advice to him that morning when he left the house: “no one can know what the Devil wears.” When Mi-Jean asks the Old Man (addressing him as Papa Bois) how he knows his name, he praises Mi-Jean extensively: “Who in the heights […] has not heard of Mi-Jean the jurist, and the gift of his tongue, his prowess in argument, Mi-Jean, the avocat, the fisherman, the litigant?”
Here, Mi-Jean demonstrates himself to be a little bit less prideful than Gros Jean. While he doesn’t engage Frog in conversation, he doesn’t immediately dismiss him. In addition, rather than completely ignoring his mother’s advice, Mi-Jean remembers part of it, which leads him to be rightly suspicious of the Old Man. However, the Old Man knows that Mi-Jean’s weakness is his pride in his intellect, and so quickly tries to take advantage of that weakness by praising the middle brother. In Caribbean folklore, Papa Bois is a benevolent spirit of the forest, which may be why Mi-Jean seems to trust him.
Themes
The Old Man asks Mi-Jean about the book he has in his hands. Mi-Jean, who has noticed that the Old Man has a hoof, tells him he will look up “man with cow-foot,” as the book has “every knowledge.” Meanwhile, the Old Man invites Mi-Jean to have some tobacco, but Mi-Jean refuses, saying, “Apart from wisdom, I have no vices.”
By identifying wisdom as one of his “vices,” Mi-Jean demonstrates a lot of ego. He clearly identifies strongly with being intelligent, and prides himself on this ability. The irony is that Mi-Jean’s pride in his intellect makes it a vice, for it is through playing to Mi-Jean’s ego that the Old Man is getting to him.
Themes
Hearing this, the Old Man asks Mi-Jean if he believes in the Devil. Mi-Jean says he does—if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to believe in God. But Mi-Jean feels he knows the Devil is not the Old Man, because the Devil “would never expose his identity so early.” When he does meet the Devil, though, Mi-Jean has a plan: to beat him “with silence and a smile.” Mi-Jean proceeds to sing a song about why the wisest thing a man can do is keep silent. While he does this, at a leisurely pace, the Old Man goes behind a bush, removes his robe and Old Man mask and reveals the Devil’s face. He then changes into the clothes and mask of the Planter.
In this moment, Mi-Jean’s declaration that the Old Man can’t be the Devil demonstrates his arrogance. He assumes, wrongly, that the Devil wouldn’t reveal himself so early, and because he makes this assumption, he isn’t as on guard with the Old Man as perhaps he should be—unwittingly, he has revealed his plan to defeat the Devil to the Devil himself. Like his brother, Mi-Jean’s pride puts him on the path to losing the challenge with the Devil.
Themes
Stepping out from behind the bushes, the Planter asks Mi-Jean if he has finished the work he gave him: to catch a wild goat. Mi-Jean nods yes, and the Planter asks, “And the menial work didn’t bore you, a thinker?” Mi-Jean only nods in response. The Planter continues to try to get Mi-Jean to talk to him, but Mi-Jean resists.
Here, readers realize that Mi-Jean has recognized the Planter as the Devil—he is employing his strategy of keeping his mouth shut. It’s possible that Mi-Jean easily recognized the Devil in the Planter’s disguise due to the Planter’s whiteness, while Papa Bois (the Old Man), whom Mi-Jean does not suspect, is a fellow black Caribbean man.
Themes
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Suddenly, the goat the Planter has asked Mi-Jean to catch breaks loose again, and the Planter tells Mi-Jean to hurry up and catch it before it gets dark. Annoyed, Mi-Jean sets off. While Mi-Jean is scurrying around trying to capture the goat, the Planter gives him a detailed, flowery explanation of the best kind of knot to use to tie the goat down. Hearing this, Mi-Jean feels angry inside, and he finally breaks his silence to tell the Planter that he knows what he’s doing.
Again, Mi-Jean’s pride becomes evident in this passage. He cannot stand having something explained to him—even something he is, apparently, doing badly—because he prides himself on being intelligent. His desire to defend his intelligence leads him to abandon his strategy of silence, and, consequently, his ego begins to get in the way of his defeating the Devil.
Themes
The Planter acknowledges Mi-Jean, explaining himself by saying, “I’ve seen dumber men, not you, fail at this knot you know, it’s just a matter of know-how, not really knowledge but plain skill.” Once Mi-Jean has run off after the goat again, the Planter, frustrated, rants about how he has no way to get Mi-Jean angry. Then Mi-Jean comes back, saying, “That goat certainly making a plethora of cacophony.” The Planter replies that the goat is only an animal, to which Mi-Jean replies, “Men are […] animals too, but at least they have souls” But the Planter believes “a man is no better than an animal,” and says so. For him, “the one with two legs makes more noise and that makes him believe he can think.”
Although the Planter fears he will never get through to Mi-Jean, in fact, he already has an in. Mi-Jean continues to ignore his previous commitment to stay silent. The fancy words he uses to describe the goat suggest that he may still be trying to prove to the Planter that he is intelligent. The Planter may have picked up on this insecurity when he insists that men are equal to animals—his comment about men only believing they can think seems particularly targeted at Mi-Jean, whose entire identity is based around being a thinker.
Themes
Mi-Jean thinks this is ridiculous, and almost catches himself, saying, “You can’t get me into no argument!” But quickly after, he adds, “All I say is that man is divine!” In response, the Planter asks Mi-Jean if he thinks he is more intelligent than a goat. Again, Mi-Jean insists that he won’t get into an argument, but the Planter says he’d like to hear what Mi-Jean has to say. So Mi-Jean stands and prepares to “lecture” on why men are superior to animals. As he speaks, though, the goat continues bleating, which comes to annoy Mi-Jean. The Planter declares that since the goat is his, if Mi-Jean gets upset at the goat, “who represents [his] view, then [he] is vexed with [the Planter], and the contract must be fulfilled.”
Here, Mi-Jean struggles to control himself, aware that he can’t get into an argument with the Planter, whom he knows is the Devil. Unfortunately, Mi-Jean’s need to prove mankind’s—and therefore, his own—intellectual merit proves more urgent to him than protecting his own life. He becomes upset at the goat, presumably for interrupting his lecture, which is a sign of Mi-Jean’s ego. He feels entitled to speak uninterruptedly, based on the merit of his ideas.
Themes
As he prepares to eat Mi-Jean, the Planter says, “Descendant of the ape, how eloquent you have become! How assured in logic! How marvelous in invention! And yet, poor shaking monkey, the animal in you is still in evidence[…]” The Planter removes his mask, and the Devil devours Mi-Jean. He says, in French, as always, “Give the Devil a child for dinner. One! Two!”
In this moment, the Planter’s choice to compare Mi-Jean to an ape is deeply racist. Historically, many pseudoscientific comparisons have been made between black people and monkeys, to demean the humanity of black people.
Themes
