Summary
Rochester receives a second letter from Daniel Cosway,
ordering him to come visit at once. Annoyed, Rochester questions
Amelie about Daniel's intentions. Amelie says, in Daniel's defense,
that "he lives like white people" and that he reads the Bible. A
moment later, however, she contradicts herself, saying that Daniel
is "a bad man" who should never visit Granbois; instead, she urges
Rochester to visit Daniel in his home in Massacre.
Rochester visits Daniel in his sweltering one-room home.
With little introduction, Daniel launches into his life's story.
He describes his dead white father, Alexander Cosway, as a despicable
philanderer who cruelly rejected him. When Daniel approached Cosway at
sixteen, Cosway denied his paternity, calling Daniel's mother a "sly-boots"
and Daniel a money-grubber, even throwing an inkstand at him. This
encounter was Daniel's last with his father.
Daniel then assures Rochester that Rochester has been
duped, that he has trusted all of the wrong people. Daniel claims
that Christophine is the most deceitful of all, as a master of obeah
magic. Numbed by these revelations, Rochester prepares to leave
when Daniel mentions Sandi, the son of his half- brother, Alexander. Daniel
insinuates that Antoinette began sleeping with Sandi as a young
girl and. When Rochester moves to the door, Daniel asks for him
for a bribe. For £500,
Daniel will keep these damaging reports to himself. When Rochester
makes no move to pay him, Daniel threatens to spread the word concerning
Antoinette's sexual past. Emerging into the bright daylight, Rochester
mounts his horse and quickly rides away.
Analysis
As with Antoinette's visit to Christophine, Rochester's
visit to Daniel marks a reversal of the racially dictated power
structure: the white Creole and English colonial seek help from
the less privileged. In Daniel's home, Rochester has no choice but
to listen to Daniel, whereas at Granbois, Rochester can exercise
complete patriarchal control, ignoring whomever he pleases, including
his wife. Before he visits Daniel, Rochester must first swallow
his pride and admit his own doubts and vulnerability. Unlike Antoinette,
who eagerly visits Christophine's home in search of comfort and
wisdom away from Granbois, Rochester must be threatened into visiting
Daniel. He is loath to lend credence to an uneducated islander,
a mixed-race Creole.
Unlike Antoinette, Rochester fails to intuit danger around
him. When Antoinette sees a cock crowing outside Christophine's
house, she immediately wonders if her old nurse can be trusted.
Antoinette recognizes that the animal is a sign, thinking, "That
is for betrayal." Rochester, on the other hand, does not look for
symbols in the natural landscape; as an outsider, he fails to correctly
read the language of the West Indies. When he leaves Daniel's house,
Rochester, too, encounters an animal, a black and white goat with
"slanting yellow-green eyes." However, he does not recognize the
animal's symbolic value as a representation of Daniel's mixed race
and contrary nature.
Most of Daniel's actions revolve around money, including
his relationship to women. Just as Christophine avoids marriage
in order to keep her money to herself, Daniel remains single. He
aims to remain financially independent, as he explains, "I don't
have to please no woman. Buy me this and buy me that—demons incarnate in
my opinion." Yet, moments later, Daniel himself adopts a subservient,
stereotypically female role when he asks Rochester for money in
exchange for his own discretion; money perverts even Daniel's gender
role. Indeed, most of the interaction in Rhys's novel appears money-driven:
Rochester and Mason marry for financial reasons, just as Christophine
and Daniel shun marriage for financial reasons. Having brought their
voracious appetite for wealth to the West Indies, the whites infect
the islands with a disease that afflicts everyone from Tia to Daniel
to Rochester. Like Tia's friendship, Daniel's advice and loyalty
has a price. Money taints most characters' motives involving marriage,
friendship, and family relations.
