47 pages • 1 hour read
George LammingIn the Castle of My Skin
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1953A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Trumper, Boy Blue, and G. attend an open-air church meeting at night. The meetings usually draw a large crowd because the villagers “liked to see how others got saved, and sometimes they heard their testimonies which were often embarrassingly intimate” (161). Even the most carnal sins of the flesh are revealed publicly, to the delight of the spectators. As G. and his friends watch a young, scared boy mull over becoming a Christian, Trumper indicates that they should leave. It’s always scary to remain until the end because one might get called on by the preacher, but Boy Blue and G. are caught up in the revelry with the other onlookers. Trumper’s insistence that they leave soon angers the crowd and catches the attention of the preacher, Brother Dickson. Boy Blue and Trumper leave, but G. is almost caught by the preacher.
Later, Boy Blue and G. think about the church meeting, while Trumper badmouths Christianity. Trumper’s heard Mr. Slime speak ill of religion by accusing it of making people passive. Mr. Slime wants the villagers to change things themselves instead of relying on religious fairytales. Boy Blue likens Mr. Slime to a black Jesus because the villagers trust and believe in him. The conversation soon switches to Trumper’s dream of going to America. When they talk about the ease with which you can get food in America, especially from vending machines, Trumper admits that he doesn’t like this particular aspect of American culture. For Trumper, there’s history and connection in not only cooking his own food but in watching his mother prepare food. If this is lost, the joy of food is lost.
The boys reach the woods, and it’s revealed that Trumper intends to trespass on the landlord’s property to watch a party that’s being held for sailors. Boy Blue and G. are terrified, but Trumper pretends that he isn’t afraid and teaches them how to trespass without getting caught. Trumper has a key to the gate in the wall, and he explains that the overseer likes Cutsie and left the key for her so that she could meet him at the gate. Cutsie refused and left the key at Trumper’s house (she had been there to visit Trumper’s dad, which is where the overseer found her and tried to woo her). The boys must hurry before the overseer arrives and looks for Cutsie.
The boys enter the grounds and watch the sailors dancing and drinking. At one point, however, they hear a voice nearby and fear that they’ve been caught. G. creeps over to a large heap of cane and hears voices belonging to a sailor and a woman. The woman is protesting, but the sailor is persistent. Boy Blue and Trumper crawl up to listen, but Trumper realizes that they’re crouching in an ant’s nest and yells. The couple rush out and chase the boys, who flee and hide. The overseer, who was at the gate waiting for Cutsie, comes in and searches for the boys as well. The boys flee back to the village as the overseer follows them (he still doesn’t know who they are). To lose him, they return to the open-air church meeting. When the overseer arrives and interrupts the service, the boys go up to be saved in an attempt to ditch the overseer. G. recalls,
The preacher spoke with great passion and the overseer retreated. Trumper and Boy Blue kept their heads down. Another boy went forward and I stepped quickly and joined him. We knelt together, our eyes closed. It was difficult to think, and this seemed the safest escape. (182)
Chapter 8 Summary
Ma and Pa sit in silence while Pa smokes his pipe. Ma wants to tell him something that she considers shameful, but she also doesn’t want to upset him. He realizes that she’s worrying and implores her to speak her mind. Earlier in the day, Ma had gone to pay the rent and saw the landlord. The landlord was perturbed, and he spoke to Ma as an equal about his troubles:
He had been living in the village for more than thirty years, but the changes that had taken place in the last eight or nine years were beyond anything he could have imagined. Disrespect, strife and the threats silent but sensed on all sides. (184)
Ma recounts her visit with the landlord in her head and feels sorry for him, and when she mentions something about vagabonds to Pa, he asks her to speak. She eventually relates that on the night of the party for the sailors, three natives tried to rape the landlord’s daughter. If it hadn’t been for a sailor who happened to be nearby, the vagabonds would’ve been successful. And as Ma always expects, “he swear by the dead an’ the livin’ that if the slightest thing happen to unsettle him, he’ll get rid o’ this land” (188). Both Ma and Pa are terrified of the landlord selling the land because things will get worse for everyone on the island.
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
The open-air church meeting in Chapter 7 foreshadows the bigger picture of manipulation as a means to a desired end. Specifically, Brother Dickson implores villagers to accept Christ by seemingly scaring them into submission. As G. notes,
Kneeling there they seemed in a way to have lined up against him. It was a conspiracy of prayer in the cause of his salvation. The clasp of the man’s hand gave the feeling of a closed door through which there would never be escape. (163)
Interestingly, this religious manipulation foreshadows the political manipulation that the villagers will soon face at the hands of Mr. Slime. It speaks to how vulnerable they are when faced with organized manipulation, which itself foreshadows the subtle racism of the British Empire and, by the end of the narrative (and in Trumper’s words), the racism felt by the Negro race. When the boys leave the open-air meeting and trespass on the landlord’s estate, their action symbolizes both a break with traditional authority and a refusal to be ruled. Though the boys refuse the church’s rules in thought, they refuse the landlord’s rules by action. Their trespass, however, has far-reaching consequences. Due to the lies of a sailor (emboldened by racism), they’re accused of trying to rape the landlord’s daughter. This accusation turns the villagers against one another. In Chapter 8, Ma and Pa are shocked that the village could stoop so low. This lie underscores just how effective the British are at keeping blacks at each other’s throats, a sentiment mentioned in earlier chapters, and also shows how untrusting whites are toward blacks. Chapter 8 also harkens back to Ma’s earlier warning about the landlord selling his land if things got too bad.
