The Kingdom Of This World

A French plantation owner, Lenormand de Mézy marries twice and then takes a mistress. He prays to a Catholic god while drinking, gambling, and raping Black women in the fields—a sign of hypocrisy that develops the novel’s treatment of Catholicism Versus Vodou. He is not presented as especially cruel, but rather typical of his class in his attraction to power and his ignorance of the humanity of those he enslaves. For years, he dreams he is simply trying to make the fortune he needs to return to France. In France, however, he realizes he misses the power he had in the colonies, so he returns. Even after Ti Noël and others rape and kill his mistress during Bouckman’s uprising, he continues to see them first and foremost as property, taking them to Cuba where he can sell them for gambling money. Nevertheless, he dies in poverty, underscoring the foolishness and shortsightedness of the white enslavers.

Macandal is one of several characters based on real historical figures—specifically, François Mackandal. He is a Mandingo and gifted orator with a deep, booming voice. More than any other character, he embodies The Power of Nature and humanity’s relationship to that power. He becomes interested in poisonous plants, is initiated into Vodou rites, and becomes the Lord of Poison, gaining the ability to spread sickness and transform himself into an animal. He amasses followers across the island in the first of the novel’s rebellions, thus establishing the relationship between the powers of Vodou and nature and resistance to enslavement (a relationship that also speaks to Carpentier’s interest in the “marvelous” as a mode of thinking about and representing reality that disrupts Western conventions).

After attempting to poison the whites of Haiti, Macandal disappears for four years, occasionally appearing to his followers in the guise of an animal. When he returns, he is swiftly captured. His followers believe that although he could escape, he chooses to allow himself to be burned so that he can remain in the earthly realm. This foreshadows Ti Noël’s realization about the importance of combatting injustice in the “kingdom of this world.”

Henri Christophe, another historical figure, is a Black Haitian man who is the chef and owner of Auberge de la Couronne, an inn and restaurant popular with French and Spanish colonizers. He eventually leaves his restaurant to join the army, and after the success of the Haitian Revolution, he becomes the country’s first Black king.

In this role, Carpentier suggests, Christophe merely perpetuates the injustices of the white imperialist regime, resulting in the continuation of Racial Violence Under Enslavement. Christophe enslaves portions of the populace to build a towering citadel and uses force and cruelty to keep them in line. He converts to Catholicism and tries to ignore Vodou. He models his court on the customs of European royalty. However, all of his efforts are for naught when he falls ill, as his subjects are eager to see him deposed. When he is left in an empty palace with his pages, his wife, and his daughters, he dies by suicide.

Pauline Bonaparte is another character drawn from real-world history. She is the French wife of General Leclerc. Before coming to Haiti, she learned about the colonial fashion and lifestyle from her aristocratic friends and her lover. A beautiful woman with “magnificent breasts,” she delights in men’s desire for her and takes pleasure in tormenting her enslaved masseuse, Soliman. When Leclerc falls ill, however, her enjoyment of Haiti is over; she follows Soliman’s lead and begins praying to the loas and performing Vodou rituals. Although she is unique among the novel’s white characters in this respect, her adoption of Vodou does not save her husband or her position in the colonies, and after her husband’s death, she returns to France.

Soliman is Pauline’s masseur. He travels with the queen and princesses to Rome after the successful overthrow of Henri Christophe. There, his skin color is a novelty. When he learns of Pauline’s death, he is distraught, and he dies shortly thereafter.