In the Castle of My Skin

“As if in serious imitation of the waters that raced outside, our lives—meaning our fears and their corresponding ideals—seemed to escape down an imaginary drain that was our future.” 

G. equates the ravishing floods outside to the tragedy and destructiveness that runs rampant in the villagers’ lives. Much of this tragedy happens later, and so this quote foreshadows things to come. The villagers are unable to stop the greater force of tragedy.

“And the answer came back louder, better organized and more communicative, so that another neighbour responded and yet another until the voices seemed to be gathered up by a single effort and the whole village shook with song on its foundation of water.” 

G.’s mother begins singing, and the village picks up the song. This highlights the communal nature of life in the village, and it also underscores its communal reaction to tragedy.

“The two yards merged. The barricade which had once protected our private secrecies had surrendered.” 

Fences are erected, even though much of the villagers’ lives are public domain. Though villagers try to preserve their privacy, the collective usually overshadows individual wills.

“‘Tis true,’ Miss Foster said. ‘When all’s said and done they is ours and we love them. Whatever we mothers say or do, nobody love them like we.’” 

Though her method of punishment seems violent, Miss Foster affirms that parents ultimately discipline their children out of love. Trumper later alludes to this when he says punishment often brings peace to his home.

“The meaning was not clear to them. It was not their concern, and it would never be. Their consciousness had never been quickened by the fact of life to which these confidences might have been a sure testimony.” 

Three mothers gossip about village matters, and G. notes how they disregard the symbolism of their stories or the possible larger implications. This partially stems from a lack of education that might otherwise make them question things.

“He had been seen by another. He had become a part of the other’s world, and therefore no longer in complete control of his own. The eye of another was a kind of cage.” 

The schoolboys and their teachers never look one another in the eye. To look someone in the eye is an intimate exercise that forces the other person to feel uneasy and caged because it assaults their identity.

“He was shaking as though he remembered something. He wasn’t afraid to die, nor was he ever worried about pains, but in recent years he was caged by a kind of curiosity that made him shake and grow cold.” 

Pa shows apprehension just before going to bed, which foreshadows his later dreams. He wonders and worries about the changes taking place in the village, and he connects these events to past wrongs (like the slave trade).

“The privilege of the spectator seemed such a great luxury.” 

The shoemaker isn’t involved in the workers’ strikes, but he has a lot to say about justice and fairness. His advice on the matter rings true, but it’s a privilege because, as a skilled craftsman, he has nothing to lose if the strike fails.

“Some people said it was the submarines which made the sea erupt. […] Others said it was the works of God manifested in different ways.” 

The villagers are prone to superstition. In this passage, they hold a belief that the safe, calm side of the sea symbolizes God’s mercy, while the rough portion of the sea symbolizes his wrath for evil spirits.

“The light, we admitted, had gone out for many of us.” 

G. thinks about how darker-skinned villagers are ridiculed and accused of being uneducated. Though being black is undesirable, most of the villagers are darker than they’d like to be. This hints at the negative impact of internal racism.

“Language was all you needed. It was like a knife. It knifed your feelings clean and proper, and put an end to any pop, pop, pop in your head.” 

G., Trumper, and Boy Blue ruminate on how they don’t have the right words to say what they mean. If they did, they could express themselves without resorting to emotions, emotions that might one day make them go mad. Language is equated with peace of mind.

“If the islands be sick ’tis for no other reason than the ancient silver.” 

Pa’s dreams bring up the Middle Passage and the slave trade, historical events that aren’t taught in village schools. In this dream state, Pa understands that many of the world’s ills stem from man’s desire for wealth.

“Whether or not they wanted to they excluded me from their world just as my memory of them and the village excluded me from the world of the High School.” 

Higher education divides the villagers, even if they don’t consciously participate in the dichotomy. G. feels the divide even worse because he’s trying to exist in two worlds, and neither world necessarily wants him.

“The mind was the man, she said, and if you had a mind you would be what you wanted to be and not what the world would have you.” 

The discrimination faced by the villagers stems not only from a lack of education on their part, but also from racism on the part of those who have money and who don’t consider the poor worthy of decency.

“It might have seemed decent or human or whatever one liked to say if they had been informed and offered the first chance of purchasing the spots. But that was unnecessary. They were poor.”

The discrimination faced by the villagers stems not only from a lack of education on their part, but also from racism on the part of those who have money and who don’t consider the poor worthy of decency.

“There was no way of forgetting what you didn’t want to remember. Once you were alive there was no death for other things till you yourself had died.” 

Pa struggles with Ma’s death. Though he tries to get rid of things that remind him of her, he realizes that memory won’t let him forget until he dies himself. In this sense, the hardest thing to do is to forget something tragic.

“He understood what the strange men couldn’t understand as well as what had seemed meaningless to the shoemaker and Mr. Foster. He had shared both worlds, and in a way it was this double understanding that had urged him to see the old man.” 

The head teacher is educated, so he understands the legal rights of the men who have purchased the land. He’s also a villager, however, so he understands the consternation and confusion of the villagers.

It was the final stage of human degradation, the grave of those who though dead had been allowed to go on living, and the point at which no noble human attribute could be claimed by the victim.” 

The narrator describes the horrible Alms House as a place worse than prison, one that strips away a person’s humanity. The people sent there are called victims in this quote, which underscores that Pa is a victim of inhumane circumstances brought about by the head teacher and Mr. Creighton.

“They won’t know the you that’s hidden somewhere in the castle of your skin.” 

G. references the title of the novel when suggesting that one’s body is a castle which protects a truer, more expressive inner self. This self must be protected at all costs because people are always trying to use it against you. He feels like he has two selves: the self he shows and the one he protects by hiding it.

“‘They cook all over the world,’ she said, ‘but ’tis how an’ what they cook. If you think cookin’ is putting a pot on the fire an’ leavin’ it till it tell you to come, you make a sad mistake.’” 

G.’s mother prepares a special farewell meal for him, and she worries about what he’ll eat in Trinidad because she’s heard that food isn’t as respected there. To her, cooking is an expression of love.

’Tis the way o’ the world, an’ in a world o’ Slimes there ain’t no way out for those who don’t know how to be slimy.” 

Trumper is furious about Mr. Slime’s participation in the land sales. With his newfound political knowledge, however, he seems to suggest that one must stoop to the level of one’s enemy, or fight fire with fire.

“Trumper made his own experience, the discovery of a race, a people, seem like a revelation. It was nothing I had known, and it didn’t seem I could know it till I had lived it.” 

The revelation that they belong to a greater cause known as the Negro race startles G., but he also realizes that he must understand this revelation through lived experience. This shows a new level of maturity on G.’s part.

“To be a different kind of creature. This way beyond my experience.” 

Though G. is now one of the most educated in Creighton’s Village, his schooling and life experiences haven’t prepared him for these struggles with identity caused by education. This in itself is an educational experience for him. It also shows just how subpar colonial education is.