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English B Plays Analysis
English B Plays Analysis
Derek Walcott
their deeply religious mother. Often, the boys don’t have enough to eat.
Gros Jean is strong but not very smart, and Mi-Jean is smart but always
has his head in the clouds. As a result, neither boy has what it takes to
provide for the family. Meanwhile, Ti-Jean, the youngest, doesn’t make
much of an effort; he sits around all day doing nothing. While their
mother laments the family’s poverty and lack of food, she believes that
One evening, the family hears a strange noise outside the hut. It is
brothers. Longing to feel human emotion, the Devil wants one of the
brothers to make him angry. The Devil promises to grant the boy that is
one of the three boys angry, the Devil will eat him.
Gros Jean, being the oldest, is the first to leave home to take on the
God, who has created all things. Gros Jean insists that he already knows
this. As he walks through the forest on his way to meet the Devil, Gros
Jean comes across Frog and exclaims at how God could make such ugly
creatures. Soon after, Gros Jean meets the Old Man, and asks him what
the quickest path to success is. The Old Man tells Gros Jean that the only
things that matters is money, and that the fastest way to acquire that is to
go and work for the Devil. So the Old Man gives Gros Jean directions to
plantation, Gros Jean has received neither a minute of rest nor a cent of
pay. Frustrated, he stops counting sugar cane for a moment to take a
smoke break. The Devil, disguised as the Planter, comes up to him and
asks why he is taking a break when lunch hour is over. Gros Jean
explains that he is tired, and the Planter encourages him to rest, while
all, the more Gros Jean works, the more the Planter earns. The Planter
continually addresses Gros Jean by the wrong name, and eventually this
upsets Gros Jean so much that he blows up at the planter. In losing his
Being the second-oldest, Mi-Jean is the brother who has to go and face
the Devil next. Leaving home, Mi-Jean also comes across Frog in the
forest and, like his older brother, insults the animal. Mi-Jean also meets
the Old Man, who recognizes him. The Old Man tells Mi-Jean that
Jean soaks up the praise, the Devil goes behind a bush and removes his
to catch, and Mi-Jean responds that he has. But the goat is loose again,
and Mi-Jean must recapture it. As he does so, the Planter begins to
explain to Mi-Jean the best way to tie down a captured goat. Mi-Jean
provoke Mi-Jean, the Planter starts a discussion about how animals and
his intellect, soon loses his temper, and in doing so, loses the challenge
Finally, it is Ti-Jean’s turn to go and meet the Devil. His mother worries
for her youngest son, who has neither the strength of the oldest nor the
intelligence of the middle son. But Ti-Jean assures her that he has faith,
the most powerful tool of all. As he walks through the forest to meet the
Devil, Ti-Jean also encounters Frog, and stops to talk with him. Frog
warns him that the Old Man is, in fact, the Devil in disguise. So when
Ti-Jean encounters the Old Man just moments later, he is prepared, and
doesn’t fall for any of the Old Man’s attempted tricks. In fact, he tells
the Old Man that he knows he is the Devil, causing the Devil to take off
his Old Man’s mask. Ti-Jean is afraid to look at the real face of the
Devil, and so the Devil disguises himself as the Planter. He tasks Ti-Jean
with capturing the same goat that his brothers were tasked with
capturing. Ti-Jean not only captures, but also castrates the goat so it
won’t escape again. Slightly frustrated, the Planter tries to keep his cool
and asks Ti-Jean to count all of the sugar cane on the plantation. Instead
down. Later that night, Ti-Jean meets up with the Devil again, who is
drunk. Ti-Jean also pretends to be drunk, and the Devil confesses to him
that he misses being an angel. When Ti-Jean tells the Devil that he
burned down the plantation, the Devil loses his temper, and Ti-Jean wins
the challenge. At first, the Devil doesn’t want to honor his side of the
bargain, but the Bolom helps Ti-Jean convince the Devil to play fair.
The Devil grants the Bolom life, and God honors Ti-Jean by giving him
Ti-Jean
The youngest of three brothers and the protagonist of the play, Ti-Jean
grows up in poverty raised by a single mother on a cold mountain
somewhere in the Caribbean.
Mi-Jean
Gros Jean
The play’s antagonist, the Devil has two disguises: the Planter and the
Old Man, also called Papa Bois
Mother
Gros Jean, Mi-Jean, and Ti-Jean’s impoverished single mother. The
boys’ mother is deeply faithful, believing that God will provide her
starving family with food
Bolom
Frog
Frog is a creature who lives in the forest. The story is framed by Frog’s
narration—he opens the play by describing the shadow of Ti-Jean in the
moon, once he has beaten the Devil.
The story is narrated by the frog, who is telling the familiar story of Ti-
Jean and His Brothers to the other animals. They perceive the story as an
The mood of much of the play is uncanny, tense, and foreboding. The
tricks Ti-Jean plays on the Devil changes the mood somewhat, making
the play more humorous and whimsical. At the end, the mood is reverent
and quiet. The tone is sympathetic to the three brothers and the mother,
despite the failings of Gros Jean and Mi-Jean. Yet it is also somewhat
and immortality.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is between the Jean family and the Devil. This plays
out in three parts, with first Gros Jean and then Mi-Jean losing to the
The climax comes when Ti-Jean drives the Devil to anger, winning the
challenge. The play reaches the highest point of tension here because the
bet.
Foreshadowing
The Devil's song at the end of the prologue foreshadows the deaths of
Allusions
yet, poor shaving monkey, the animal in you is still in evidence, that
goat . . .” in Act 2 alludes to this famous quote from Shakespeare's
action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of
the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this
quintessence of dust?"
Imagery
Paradox
Parallelism
The structures of the three acts all parallel one another, with each brother
leaving home, speaking with the animals, meeting the old man, and
In the opening scene, Walcott divides the stage between the animals
narrating the story of Ti-Jean, and the story of Ti-Jean being acted out.
This brings their story to life and creates a smooth transition from the
The script dictates that after Gros Jean's death in the first act, his grave
death. This dramatic device uses the stage to foreshadow the dangers
THEMES
Analysis
Ti-Jean and His Brothers is a fable set in the Caribbean in which
him angry. But the other side of the deal is that the Devil will eat the
three brothers, is the only one who successfully defeats the Devil in this
Devil because of their pride—they want to prove that they can succeed
at the impossible tasks the Devil assigns them, whereas Ti-Jean doesn’t
humility.
where the Devil himself is the owner. Proud of his legendary strength,
working conditions. When Gros Jean takes a smoke break from his hard
work, the Devil, disguised as the Planter, comes up to Gros Jean and
criticizes him for taking a break. Gros Jean, who doesn’t know that the
Planter is the Devil in disguise, wants to earn the praise of his boss and
saying, “I do more work than most, right?” Here, Gros Jean makes it
evident that he wishes to be recognized for his hard work and superiority
“arm of iron,” thinking that his strength will promise him success. But
the Planter continues to hint that Gros Jean isn’t working hard enough,
manipulatively telling Gros Jean to go ahead and have his smoke but
then reminding him, “the harder you work the more” the Planter himself
makes—implying that the Planter will value him more if he works even
harder. Ultimately, Gros Jean becomes angry because the Planter won’t
acknowledge how much work he has already done. In this way, Gros
Jean’s pride—his identification with being strong, and with being able to
Therefore, Gros Jean’s pride leads to his undoing. He gets angry with
Planter’s implication that he should work even harder wounds his pride.
Mi-Jean is harder for the Devil to beat, but ultimately the Devil is able to
resolves not to speak to the Devil at all in order to protect himself from
getting angry. However, when the Devil begins to talk about his belief
eventually loses his temper, arguing with the Devil that man is, in fact,
divine. His pride causes him to defend the idea that is the basis of his
challenge.
Ti-Jean, the youngest of the brothers, is unattached to any particular
allows him to defeat the Devil. When Ti-Jean leaves home to try and
specific talents, he will be unable to face the Devil. However, his two
older brothers lost to the Devil precisely because they had “proven”
idea of beating the Devil with those skills. The fact that Gros Jean and
them vulnerable to the Devil’s manipulation. The Devil tries to make Ti-
all of the sugar leaves on his plantation. Gros Jean’s inability to perform
a similar task makes him angry, as he prides himself on his strength and
wishes to prove his ability to the Devil. However, Ti-Jean has no such
Devil or measuring up to the standards the Devil creates for him, he does
not get angry like his brothers. His lack of response, in turn, angers the
prove that they measure up to the standards and expectations set by the
Devil. Their egos are so inflated that they don’t stop to wonder whether
it’s really worth it to try and prove themselves to the Devil. However,
need to prove himself to the Devil, and to see that the whole system the
In Ti-Jean and His Brothers, Derek Walcott tells a fable about three
young men challenged to defeat the Devil. The Devil makes a bet with
the three brothers: they are to try to make him angry. If they succeed, the
Devil will grant them wealth and property. If they fail, the Devil will eat
and highlights the danger that living under and accepting these systems
One of the Devil’s disguises is as the Planter, the owner of a large cotton
owners were notorious for their violence and brutality. When Ti-Jean’s
[…] sugar, tobacco, and a hell of a big white house where they say the
farmed at slave plantations, and the allusion to the “big white house” or
master’s house implies that the Devil is a slave master—and that Gros
smoke break, and the Devil, unhappy that Gros Jean is not being
this conversation, the Devil confuses Gros Jean’s name several times,
from the other works is likely also racist, as all of the workers on the
plantation are black. Finally, chien is the French word for “dog,” and so
in calling Gros Jean by this name, the Devil implies that he does not
black slaves.
comparing him to an animal. Mi-Jean gets into a debate with the Old
Man about whether animals and humans are equal in intellect or not. Mi-
Jean passionately defends the superiority of human beings, while the Old
Man suggests that humans and animals are equally lacking in intellectual
capacity. When he notices Mi-Jean is getting upset, the Old Man says,
“Descendant of the ape, how eloquent you have become! How assured
racist ideologies that compare black people to apes and suggest that
black people have not reached the same stage of evolution as white
people. Like the Planter’s interactions with Gros Jean, the way that the
Old Man treats Mi-Jean has clear echoes of racist stereotypes. By
For both Mi-Jean and Gros Jean, the Devil’s racism is what leads to their
deaths: Mi-Jean becomes upset that the Old Man implies that he is equal
to an ape, and, in getting angry, loses the bet with the Devil. Similarly,
Gros Jean becomes upset with the Planter for various reasons, one of
which is the fact that the Planter’s racism prevents him from
casts racism and colonialism as systems that literally endanger the lives
anger any of the brothers, he will kill him, while any brother that can
disguised as the Planter, the Devil reveals many beliefs that speak to his
Man had advised him to go and work for the Devil, saying, “Working
for the Devil [is] the shortest way to success.” Here, the Old Man’s
advice assumes that Gros Jean has a very capitalistic view of success:
working for the Devil would not be the quickest way to achieve it.
However, as the Old Man assumes correctly that Gros Jean is seeking
is true that working for the Devil is the quickest way to achieve these
things. In his conversation with Gros Jean, the Devil (disguised as the
of human workers under capitalism. The Devil forgets that his workers
would rather not account for the limitations that the workers’ humanity
capitalism.
overwork himself. In working on the plantation, Gros Jean loses the bet
and shouldn’t have taken a break. Because Gros Jean prides himself on
Gros Jean gets angry when the Planter points out that he doesn’t meet
Jean’s willingness to let the capitalist value system define him leads to
his downfall.
capturing a goat that continuously runs away, and Ti-Jean gives up,
saying, “I got a bit tired chasing the goat / I’m human you know.” Here,
Ti-Jean, unlike his older brother, is not ashamed of the limitations that
being human places on his productivity. This suggests that Ti-Jean has
not bought into the capitalist value system; unlike Gros Jean, he doesn’t
think that his worth is directly correlated with his productivity. While
Gros Jean attempts to succeed under this system, Ti-Jean defies it. His
refusal to endlessly chase after the goat is only the beginning of his
resistance: when the Planter asks Ti-Jean to count all of the sugar cane
down all of the crops, as well as the Planter’s house. In destroying the
to cruel treatment. This, in turn, angers the Devil, and Ti-Jean wins the
bet.
by the Devil’s rules. He recognizes that the system the Devil has set up
abuse.
older brothers live in poverty, and the Devil promises them that whoever
among them can cause him to lose his temper will receive wealth and
angry, he gets to eat him. As the three brothers navigate this challenging
While Ti-Jean has an understanding of faith that gives him courage and
strength to face the Devil, his two brothers have more negative
demonstrating the ways in which Ti-Jean’s faith helps him to beat the
Devil, Walcott stresses the power of steadfast religious belief even in the
of God acting in their lives, and therefore their belief in God wavers
deeper than either of his brothers’, one that doesn’t depend on external
boys to “Wait, and God will send [them] something.” But neither Gros
Jean nor Mi-Jean is convinced. Gros Jean responds, “God forget where
he put us,” and Mi-Jean says, “God too irresponsible.” In both cases, the
caring for all of his creations. What’s important about the both brothers’
insistence that God is not engaged with their lives is that they assume
Ti-Jean, on the other hand, has a faith stronger than that of his brothers.
that Ti-Jean is able to accept the world as it is, without assuming that
God does not exist. Ti-Jean’s faith is something that he learned from his
mother, who tries to impart lessons of faith to each of her sons before
they leave. Ti-Jean is the only one who listens. When Gros Jean leaves
home to go and fight the Devil, his mother tells him, “Praise God who
make all things,” and Gros Jean insists that he already knows this.
talking animals who dwell in the forest nearby. Frog offers each of the
brothers advice as they depart. Gros Jean says to Frog, “Get out of my
way, you slimy bastard! How God could make such things?” This
reflects the fact that, contrary to what he told his mother, he does not
“already know” to praise God and all of the things that he has made.
human, for being a strong man—to other creations that God has made.
faith, he stops to talk to Frog and the other creatures instead of insulting
or ignoring them, as Mi-Jean and Gros Jean have done. The creatures
tell Ti-Jean to beware of the Old Man who tricked both of his brothers—
and who turns out to be the Devil himself. Because Ti-Jean knows that
the Old Man is really the Devil in disguise, he sees through his
manipulations and is eventually able to defeat the Devil. In this way, Ti-
God’s love, and don’t have faith if they don’t see such evidence. While
they are looking for this evidence, however, they forget to put into
which causes them to lose their lives—had they truly appreciated all of
God’s creatures, like Ti-Jean does, it’s likely that the animals would
have warned them, too, about the Devil. However, Ti-Jean is willing to
represents belief in God, common sense, and taking advice from other
The Devil and the many masks he wears represent colonial oppression.
David.
1. 1
How does Walcott’s use of folkloric storytelling devices help him
develop the themes of Ti-Jean and His Brothers? Use one specific
characters within the story, but their conversation also forms a frame
around the story. The continuity between the animals who help Ti-Jean
win, and the animals who later remember his deeds, allows Walcott to
nature, both important themes in the play. Within the story, the animals
are mortal creatures like Ti-Jean: they share in his knowledge of death
human life. Individual birds, crickets, and fireflies die, but the sounds of
The brother’s first name, “Gros,” is the French word for “large.” Like
large and powerful body. Reading Gros Jean as an allegory, we see that
human strength is brave and capable, but that it eventually gets worn
out, and dies. This suggests that strength is not enough to save humanity
from death.
3. Walcott depicts the Devil as a person who wears many masks.
What does this suggest about the character of the Devil in the
play?
Throughout the play, the Devil almost always appears to the human
characters while wearing one of two masks: either the old man or the
planter. Mother cautions her sons that the Devil can appear in many
guises, suggesting that these two masks are not the only two forms the
Devil can take, but only the two forms Walcott chooses to use in this
play. These specific forms are important: the old man emphasizes the
danger of relying on mortal wisdom, while the planter stresses the evil of
the colonial system. However, the Devil's capacity to change forms also
suggests, more broadly, that evil can appear in many forms. This, in
turn, suggests that to live a good life, one must be constantly vigilant
appears on stage alone. The idea of the Devil coming in many guises
and a tragic personal history. By the end of the play, this is the Devil’s
most important trait, because his desire for emotion leads him to spare
Ti-Jean after Mother’s death makes the Devil cry. Ultimately, Walcott
suggests that the world is not simply divided between good and evil. The
challenge of life is not only to be good, but to reckon with problems like
knowledge.
encyclopedic accounts of the world and all that is in it. These books
knowledge has its own limitations. In Mi-Jean’s meeting with the Old
Man, he sees that the man has a goat’s foot, and attempts to reference his
book. The book can tell him about all of the individual things he wants
to know, but it cannot help him to make connections between feet, goats,
to deduce his identity from his characteristics, even though the old man
how Walcott develops it. Use at least one quotation from the
One important theme in Ti-Jean and His Brothers is the idea that work
is not just an action, but a value. Gros Jean suggests this theme when he
says to the planter, “Chief, why you don't take a rest too somewhat? You
have all this land, all this big house and so forth, people working for you
as if is ants self, but is only work, work, work in your mind, ent you has
enough?” By saying “it is only work…in your mind,” Gros Jean stresses
that work isn’t just something the planter does, but something he thinks
about. The planter’s obsession with work prevents him from enjoying
the fruits of his wealth, because all he cares about is work for its own
sake. This alludes to the idea of the “Protestant work ethic,” one of the
Exemplified in axioms like “idle hands are the Devil’s tools,” this idea
native peoples and enslaved Africans to work. When the planter forces