Book of night women

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James is an incredibly authentic-feeling overbold that brings into play many deep issues for being a piece of fiction. I found this book to be a real page-turner that helped, among other things, to run my understanding of the institution of striverry in the West Indies as fountainhead as the dynamics of the births between the slave and master. It is this often confusing relationship that I wish to further explore in this paper.In the story our master(prenominal) character, Lilith, ends up developing feelings for her master, an Irishman named Robert Quinn. The character Quinn is a blanched slave proprietor that eems to understand that the institution of slavery is an evil one, but does non come what to do ab emerge it, so he goes on with life the path it is. It is hard to hate him, but its hard to the like him as well. beingness an Irishman, he is humiliateder on the tender hierarchy put in place by the slave owning community, and because of this he searches for pity and tries to relate to Lilith, his slave.He compares their lives and social standings, which to me seems almost ridiculous, but to him is a completely legitimate understanding. He does dole out Lilith with a certain respect that no other slave owners in the story ives to her. One example that stands out in my mind is the intimacy of their sexual relationship being more tender and loving than the vernacular animalistic approach that many of the other masters take out on the slave women. No, fucking.No, rutting like animals, like the animal all white man think black woman be. But he enounce something when he coming and he train on to her so weak, like she be the master and is all he can do to hold on. However, Robert Quinn and Lilith are still clearly not equal to one another(prenominal) in the way that Quinn so desperatly tries to convey to her. I feel that the fourth dimension period placed on this story plays a significant intention in Robert Q uinns treatment of Lilith as a woman.At first glance, even if he is a bit more kind to her, such as pressure that Lilith sit and eat with him while she stands in the corner just reflexion (something she is accostomed to), and telling her that he wishes to teach her how to ride a horse he is still incredibly demanding of her. He still tells her that he expects a well-disposed meal when he returns home late, and that she should clean his home, etc. But retentivity this in context, this is how the average woman ould have been treated at the time.Robert Quinn is treating her often more like they are in the average relationship found gender roles of the time, and oftentimes less like the usual master and slave relationship. This was a somewhat confusing aspect of the text, that unless put into the perspective time, could be completely missed. It is apparent though, that Robert Quinn wants Lilith to feel this connection between the two of them. He wants her to feel as if she is a f ree woman when she is with him, so much so that he almost forces this upon her. As if demanding her to be free woman when in his company, which is redicoulous and hypacritical.In conclussion, Marlon James does a great Job at flowering this relationship to his readers in a way that touches many aspects of the gender and ground level roles of the time. It is my opinion that no matter how much Lilith wanted to hate her master, Robert Quinn, she could not simply because of his often soft treatment of her even if he was them. No matter how misguided the opinions of Robert Quinn may seem, he truely beleived what he infered about his low social standings and the resulting connections he made with Lilith.