In the Castle of My Skin

In the Castle of My Skin Summary | Chapter 1 Summary

In the Castle of My Skin is George Lamming's novel about nine years of a boy's life as he grows up on the island of Barbados in the 1940's and 1950's. The story's universal messages of tradition, change, friendship, and maturity are set against the backdrop of an idyllic and placid island setting for which the author shows genuine delight.

As the story begins, a deluge of rain beats down on a small village in Barbados where a boy celebrates his ninth birthday in the mid-1940's. The neighbors say that the rain signifies showers of blessings, but the boy would have preferred more pleasant weather on this ninth most important day of his life. By afternoon, the water has risen to flood the verandah of the house the boy shares with his mother. Soon the water seeps into the house and the boy's mother dries it with sacks but she can do nothing about the water that drips through the cracks in the roof. The boy, who is the story's narrator, will recall those rains as following him throughout his entire life.

The village consists of clay and limestone roads that would slide in the heavy rains, shifting various houses further into the road. At night, the gas lamps on the main intersection in the village would provide the atmosphere for the young boys and old men to gather and tell stories and play games. The side streets have social cliques, just as most other towns and cities, but everyone gathers at the public bath that was built to accommodate both men and women.

Floods like this one can change the entire identity of a village because of the devastating effects of the water. The boy's mother sings to calm the boy's distress, but he cannot help but think about the father who left his mother before the boy was even born. Before long, the neighbors join the boy's mother in singing, and the voices reverberate on the flooded streets. Gradually the singing subsides and the boy asks about his relatives. He is told that his maternal grandfather is dead, but his maternal grandmother is alive and living in Panama. The boy's only brother lives in America and the boy feels lonely because of the lack of any family.

In spite of the fact that some villagers lost their homes today, the boy pouts because the flood has ruined his chance for a birthday cake with candles. Out of boredom, the boy plays with his pet pigeon, feeds it to excess, and then makes the bird drink a phial of castor oil. The pigeon dies that night, and the boy marks up another tragedy on this disappointing day.

During the night, the boy and mother lie in their bed and talk about their plans for the next day while the boy tries to dodge raindrops still leaking through the crevices in the roof. The boy's mother talks in her sleep, worried about rainwater getting into the barrel where the drinking water is kept. The boy's mother also wonders in her sleep about Pa and Ma, the two oldest people in the village. While his mother sleeps fitfully, the boy sees phantoms in the room that do not disappear, regardless of the boy's attempts to squeeze them away with his eyes.

Sometime during the night, the rain stops, the villagers sleep, and the boy's birthday disappears, leaving only the blessings brought by the unrelenting showers.