Banana Bottom: Analysis of Major Characters
"Banana Bottom: Analysis of Major Characters" explores the intricate dynamics of key figures within a Jamaican context, primarily focusing on Tabitha (Bita) Plant, a village girl adopted by British missionaries, the Craigs. Bita's journey reflects her struggle against the imposed cultural and moral constraints of her upbringing, as she seeks to blend her Caribbean roots with European influences. Malcolm Craig, the Calvinist minister, embodies the rigidity of colonial beliefs, while his wife, Priscilla, despite her feminist leanings, demonstrates an emotional detachment in her role as Bita's guardian.
Other notable characters include Crazy Bow Adair, a free-spirited musician who represents Bita's ideals of passion and creativity, and Hopping Dick, who embodies the allure of folk traditions that Bita longs for but ultimately finds disappointing. Herald Newton Day emerges as a hypocritical theology student, showcasing the failures of colonial aspirations. In contrast, Squire Gensir stands as a progressive figure advocating for Jamaican culture and self-esteem, serving as a catalyst for Bita's personal growth. Finally, Jubban, Bita's father, offers a model of strength and pride, providing emotional grounding in her tumultuous life. This analysis presents a rich tapestry of characters that highlight themes of identity, cultural conflict, and the quest for self-acceptance in a post-colonial landscape.
Banana Bottom: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Claude McKay
First published: 1933
Genre: Novel
Locale: Jubilee and Banana Bottom, both in Jamaica
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: The early 1900's
Tabitha (Bita) Plant, a Jamaican village girl adopted and educated by the Craigs, who are British missionaries. At the age of twelve, she had her first sexual experience, to which she was a willing partner; propriety required that it be represented as rape. Accordingly, when adopted, she is sent to Europe for seven years to be transformed into a dark-skinned Briton of Calvinist outlook, a proper model for the local villagers. She rejects hypocrisy, enjoys sensuality, identifies with folk institutions and beliefs, and adopts a philosophy and lifestyle that are amalgams of Caribbean and continental cultures, of colonial and metropolitan ways. She is the quint-essential woman of the West Indies: physical, intellectual, and attuned to island life.
Malcolm Craig, a Calvinist minister of the mission church in Jubilee. His grandfather founded the mission. Well-built, frank, and hearty, he grew up in the village and loved the countryside; however, his religion was unforgiving, confining, and joyless. His true motive in adopting and educating Bita was to demonstrate his theory that natives could be transformed into civilized individuals and weaned from the joys of the flesh.
Priscilla Craig, one of only two ordained clergywomen in the colony. She is a middle-aged, small woman full of high-class anxiety, a feminist related to British suffragists. Her face flushes with beatific light whenever she sings in church. Her son is a disabled, mentally impaired adult, and she is unable to agree to her husband's wish to adopt a boy as a possible successor. She nevertheless agrees to adopt Bita, whom she wishes to rear as “an exhibit.” Like her husband, she denigrates affection and intimacy. She is generous in her expenditure of resources for Bita's education, but she is niggardly in her expenditure of love.
Crazy Bow Adair, a descendant of a Scots settler who had bought the vast mountain estate of Banana Bottom and married one of the blackest slaves whom he liberated. Precocious, intellectual, and the color of a ripe banana, he was schooled for a white-collar job; he was competent as a musician, able to play bamboo flute, guitar, banjo, and fiddle, even the school piano. He and Bita romped in the riverbank grasses, and, although he was twenty-five years old, he was considered harmlessly light-headed. Bita succumbed to his music, caressed him, and, with passion, induced her own seduction. As an educated, musical, older, and physical man, he represented those things that Bita admired in life.
Hopping Dick, a fine-strutting dandy. On her return from Europe, Bita meets him at a local market. She is impressed by his undisguised and acknowledged physicality, by his dancing and romancing. He is a follower of the primitives' god Obeah and is anti-intellectual, yet he attracts Bita for a time, for he represents that aspect of her that the Craigs have attempted to expunge. His backing out of their engagement, conversion to Christianity, and forsaking of folkways leaves Bita disillusioned and frustrated.
Herald Newton Day, a theology student. the elder son of Deacon Day, he was being groomed to succeed the Craigs in the Free Church at Jubilee. Local belief was that the Craigs intended that he should marry Bita. Mrs. Craig describes him as a worthy young man, but he is essentially proud, affected, sanctimonious, and lacking in any racial identification and self-esteem. He is an absolute hypocrite: His joy in preaching is in hearing his own voice; his sermon on the sufficiency of God's love is negated by his defiling himself with a nanny goat. He is an example of the failure to transform human nature; he is not the herald of the new town or the new day that his name suggests.
Squire Gensir, a freethinking British settler of aristocratic mien and background who is a serious student of Jamaican culture and an advocate of black self-esteem. He is an opponent of the Craigs and their philosophy; he is instrumental in having Bita accompany him to a “tea meeting,” at which she dances with skill and enthusiasm, recognizing her affinity with the folk of Jamaica. According to one local preacher, Gensir is decadent because he collects folklore; however, Gensir stands firm against discrimination in accommodations. He is given to simple dress and loves the island and its common people. His high intellect, however, precludes him from being wholly submerged in the austere simplicity of village life. He is essentially “a lonely man living a lonely life,” but he is the catalyst for Bita's transformation and ultimate self-fulfillment.
Jubban, the elderly drayman of Jordan Plant, Bita's father. He is thoughtful, hardworking, and an emotional, responsive, and responsible lover and husband. He is serious, strong, and proud of his race and of his own accomplishments as a worker. He is the true complement of Bita and the foundation of her contentment.