In the Castle of My Skin

The chapter is divided into three sections: Morning, Noon, and Night. In the Morning section, the shoemaker argues with a well-dressed mulatto. The man is a chief sanitary inspector and a famous athlete on the island. He informs the shoemaker that he owns the land the shoemaker’s shop is on and that the shoemaker must clear the property within three weeks. The shoemaker doesn’t understand what the man is talking about, and the man finally leaves, annoyed. There have been many rumors lately about the land, so crowds gather to speculate on what the encounter means. Bob’s father and the overseer’s brother console the shoemaker, who begins crying. He’s hurt because he’s had the property for 20 years and now a stranger says he has no rights to it. Bob’s father tries to console him, saying, “What good for one good for all, an’ if you sink we all have to sink with you” (237).

In the Noon section, Mr. Foster is visited by a stranger who tells him that he must vacate his land. Mr. Foster and his wife query the man and learn that Mr. Creighton has indeed sold the land, but Mr. Foster doesn’t understand why he did so without their consent. Though the stranger, who grows increasingly annoyed, uses an analogy to explain why they must now talk to him, Mr. Foster thinks the man is insulting him. Miss Foster sums up the view of most villagers when she says, “This land ain’t the sort of land that can be for buy or sell. […] Twas always an’ ’twill always be land for we people to live on” (239). Mr. Foster becomes increasingly upset, and Miss Foster senses that he might get violent. Though the stranger listens, he thinks about his own struggles. He’s part of the more comfortable class on the island, and he’s had to move his family from one house to the next to keep up with social expectations. Though the landlord hasn’t informed the villagers that he’s sold Creighton’s Village, the stranger now has a chance to own land, and he knows that the law is on his side. The overseer eventually arrives with papers that support the stranger’s claim to the land. The stranger leaves, and the overseer posts a bill explaining that the land has in fact been sold, and that some plots have already been “disposed of” (246). For more information, the villagers must contact Mr. Slime.

In the Night section, the head teacher visits Pa and informs him that his plot of land has been sold. The head teacher has also spoken with Mr. Creighton, and they’ve decided to place Pa in the Alms House. Pa takes the news in stride, which puzzles the head teacher. Everyone knows that the Alms House is little more than a prison for the poor and afflicted. It’s the last place anyone would want to move to willingly. The head teacher wonders if Pa is perhaps too dignified to make a scene about what’s happening, and he recalls how Pa once had a lot of money because he worked in Panama. Like himself and a few others, Pa probably understands both sides of the issue. When Pa finally speaks, however, his questions grate on the head teacher. Pa wants to know how and why the land could be sold by the landlord when he knows how attached the villagers are to the land. He also asks about Mr. Slime’s involvement and whether or not Mr. Slime is a good person. In speaking of the landlord’s decision to sell, Pa says, “But ’twusn’t right for him to leave us like stray dogs without a owner. He always say he wus responsible for the villagers. That’s what he always say. He had a responsibility which we mayn’t quite understand. An’ now, look, look what he do” (256).

While G.’s mother prepares his farewell dinner (he’s leaving for Trinidad the following day), he reads entries from an old journal. One of the more revealing entries explains how G. overheard Mr. Slime, the head teacher, and a few other men discussing the land. The men knew that the villagers couldn’t pay in cash and would have to pay interest, meaning that the men would make more money off the villagers. The head teacher seemed uneasy, while Mr. Slime appeared resigned to the villagers’ fate. When they talked about Pa and the Alms House, G. left the club, shocked. Another entry discusses his rendezvous with a prostitute, as well as his views on friendship and connection. Though people act like his friends, G. reveals that “I am always feeling terrified of being known; not because they really know you, but simply because their claim to this knowledge is a concealed attempt to destroy you” (261). G. feels like he has two different sides to himself. The side he hides might come into its own in Trinidad, but he can’t express that side in Barbados.

G.’s mother grows angry at him for his apparent lack of respect. Now that he’s educated, she feels that G. treats her like a maid. G. isn’t sure how to console his mother: “She wasn’t naturally quarrelsome, but in the last three or four years she had grown terribly anxious about everything” (263). Though he wants to apologize, his mother grows increasingly angry, so he begins eating. She then grabs a stick and tries to spank him, but G. takes the stick and laughs, angering his mother further. She eventually finds her actions comical as well, and they eat as the tension diffuses. G. finally learns that his mother was upset because a cat that has been stealing food in the neighborhood almost ruined his farewell dinner. G.’s mother mentions that she’s been chatting with a villager named Dave who recently returned from Trinidad. Though Dave’s views on Trinidad seem biased, G.’s mother uses these views to instruct G. on how to act when he gets there. She laments that younger women in Trinidad don’t cook for their men and that food preparation isn’t important there. She also informs G. that the libraries are lackluster, which concerns him. She also warns him against acting a fool and implores him to watch his health. After surprising G. with ice cream, she goes over his list of belongings once more as he reflects on his childhood.

Both G. and his mother are later surprised by Trumper. Trumper has just returned from America and wants to say farewell. Both G. and his mother can tell that Trumper’s changed tremendously. He dresses differently and uses words they’ve never heard before. He tells them about his time abroad, though he has mixed feelings about America. When the subject turns to the land, Trumper gets upset and calls Mr. Slime a criminal. This is the first time that G. and his mother have thought about Mr. Slime as shady. Trumper and G. eventually go for a farewell drink. It’s while drinking that Trumper implores G. to smarten up and approach life with a more political mindset. He tells G. about the Negro race. G. will never know about the oppression—or the comradery—of the Negro race without traveling farther than Trinidad or Barbados and opening his mind. As they walk back to the village, they see a group of men trying to move the shoemaker’s shop. The shop crumbles into pieces, leaving everyone crestfallen. G. and Trumper say their goodbyes, and as G. walks home, he tries to make peace with his past while embracing the uncertainty of the future: “The earth where I walked was a marvel of blackness and I knew in a sense more deep than simple departure I had said farewell, farewell to the land” (303).