Finally, before we look at the poem, let me cover something about Guyana that is important in this context. You may or may not know that the country’s population is made up mainly of people of African and East Indian origin. Like Jamaica, Guyana, then British Guiana, was a colony of England where after slavery, East Indians were brought as labourers. They were taken to the Caribbean to work on sugar estates. East Indians were sometimes called 'coolies', a word which, for some, was meant to belittle and show contempt. As a Guyanese, David Dabydeen has intimate knowledge of his country and of the social conditions under which Guyanese of both Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean races exist.
Stanza 1 is the start that shows that the mother is working hard for some reason which we do not know yet. We could tell from the very beginning that the woman is very poor, as she lives in a “bruk-down hut big like Bata-shoe box”, this shows how small and wrecked the house is, hence the words bruk-down and shoe box. Lines 3 – 7 shows that she was a hard working woman.
Beat clothes, weed yard, chop wood, feed fowl, listed as everyday tasks which she does on her own without assistance
The general tendency of Indian families and the Indo-Guyanese community is to maintain a distinctive and separate identity clearly derived from their attachment to Indian culture. However, British planters had kept their Indian workers on their estates and prevented them from acquiring an education and mainstream occupations. Therefore this line emphasizes the tasks a typical lower class Indo Guyanese woman would undertake such as chopping wood and feeding farm animals, and other household and agricultural tasks.
Furthermore the authority and control over such women is expressed by the line ‘for this body, and that body, and every blasted body’ as it clearly shows that they were expected to keep a lot of people satisfied by their manual labour, in a sense of dislike and hate for these people through the word ‘blasted’.
Dabydeen uses the image of water very effectively to express her hardships. He does this by contrasting the amount of water she fetches, with the amount she receives for herself. The image of the whole slow flowing Canje River is contrasted with that of one bucket, showing how she puts in a lot of effort at times when she works, to get back very little in return.
In stanza 2 we learn of the pain she experiences in her work. The writer says that she kept on working until her feet cracked her hand was cut. This shows that although her work may not have been desirable, she put in a lot of effort and didn’t try to just let the time pass by.
“And curse swarm from she mouth like red-ants”, this line shows how aggressive and chaotic she was while cursing, as we all know that red-ants swarm about the place violently . She cursed and coughed but didn’t let it get to her as her mind was set. Line 11, “Because Jasmattie heart hard, she mind set hard.”
Nonetheless, by the 1920s, Indians began entering the learned professions, especially law and medicine, in substantial numbers, and the trend toward increasing participation in leadership roles in mainstream society continued until the mid-sixties. The situation began to change when the Indian-dominated People's Progressive Party lost control of the government to the People's National Congress, associated with the Afro-Guyanese. Although there was no absolute ethnic split between Indo- and Afro-Guyanese in regard to these two parties, increasingly violent confrontation entrenched the ethnic division. An increase in racial discrimination and reduced opportunities in the future also caused increasing numbers of Indo-Guyanese to consider emigrating.
And she cough blood but mash it in- Tubercolosis, chest problems, lung infections, disease, no medicine for this at the time so she just coughed blood.
There was a certain level of discontent between the two races which may have been emphasised in this context by Jasmattie’s cursing.
The Indian family in Guyana is a very close-knit band of extended lineage, which includes two, three, and often four generations living in close proximity. Elders are still valued highly. Their knowledge is seen as relevant to current situations since culturally the way of life has changed very little through the generations. Very often older family members who are no longer gainfully employed are responsible for looking after pre-schoolers. This reinforces the transfer of values and norms, as most personality theorists agree that the significant personality developments occur before the age of eight. Since parents pass their beliefs on to their children and subsequently to their grandchildren, family values have remained constant, and the possibility of family and personality conflicts have been significantly lessened. It is also quite common for adults to continue in the family business or farm and to seek to pass it on to yet another generation. However as we learn in stanza 3, Jasmattie values her son and has no intentions for him to continue working like she does. Instead she wants him to be educated. We become aware with the situation as to why Jasmattie has been working so hard all the time. She has great hopes for her son, Harillal, who she wants to go to England University.
Last stanza
Focuses on habits her son must pick up to have a positive future in Georgetown university
All building up to last line, impact
And she son Harilall got to go to school in Georgetown,
Must wear clean starch pants, or they go laugh at he,
Strap leather on he foot, and he must read book,
Learn talk proper, take exam, go to England university,
Not to turn out like he rum-sucker chamar dadee.
Chamar low cast, ‘cleaner/servant’ Indian/Pakistani common term
The last line lets the reader know that the mother is against letting her son turn out like his father. This shows that the father is no good. Rum-sucker indicates that the father is a drunkard.
