36 pages • 1 hour read
Brown Girl in the Ring
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Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Rudy takes Tony back to the main office, paralyzing him with toad poison so that he can leverage his next threat. He reveals to Tony that he learned obeah from Mami, who kicked him out of the house for being addicted to drugs. He used to steal from the posse, just as Tony has done, and was punished for it. Finally, he called upon Eshu to take away the pain of his addiction and to take revenge on his enemies. Eshu warned him that he would have to take a life for this request, which Rudy readily agreed to. Eshu also told Rudy that, to retain this power, he would have to find a dead man duppy to do his bidding and feed him blood continuously. Once Rudy did this, his enemies started dying before him. It also made him ageless and impenetrable. He declares, “No scar, no scratch, that me duppy don’t fix it for me” (130). He tells this story to Tony to demonstrate that he is not afraid of the warning that the Prince of Cemetery has shared through Crack Monkey.
When Tony’s paralysis wears off, he is shocked to find Rudy flaying Melba, a serving woman who was under Rudy’s volition. Rudy slits Melba’s throat into the duppy bowl and calls upon the dead man duppy to ensure that Tony completes his task of acquiring a human heart. A menacing spirit emerges from the bowl. Rudy tells the spirit to follow Tony to make sure that he kills Mami and Ti-Jeanne and delivers a human heart to Uttley in the hospital for “the price of [his] own life” (136). Tony reluctantly agrees. When he leaves, Rudy tells the spirit that he wants to revise his initial demand, instructing the duppy: “Once he give the heart to the hospital, I want you to kill all of them: Ti-Jeanne, Tony, everybody” (140).
Chapter 7 Summary
Crazy Betty arrives at Mami’s door. Mami lets her in much to Ti-Jeanne’s confusion. Mami reveals that Crazy Betty is Mi-Jeanne, Ti-Jeanne’s mother. Ti-Jeanne is shocked; she has not seen her mother in years, and the aged woman before her, with sunken eyes, is unrecognizable. Mami explains that, when she kicked Rudy out of the house, Mi-Jeanne chose to live with him. Mi-Jeanne did not like Mami’s new partner, Dunston, and sided with her father, which proved to be a mistake. Mi-Jeanne is in distress as she cries out, “Watch out for he!” (144).
Tony arrives at Mami’s door next. Ti-Jeanne is relieved to see Tony, who relays to everyone that Rudy has let him go as he has managed to secure another organ donor. Mami is suspicious of Tony’s narrative. Before she can investigate her suspicions further, a red mist departs from Tony’s body and settles into Mi-Jeanne, causing her to collapse. Ti-Jeanne disappears with Mi-Jeanne and Baby into her bedroom to help her mother into bed. While Ti-Jeanne is helping her mother, Mami and Tony look for medicine to treat Mi-Jeanne. When Mami reaches for a bottle in the medicine cabinet, Tony hits her on the head with a hammer, causing her to fall unconscious.
The ambulance from the Angel of Mercy Hospital arrives and retrieves Mami’s body. Ti-Jeanne is in shock. One of the Vultures tell her that Mami is dead and that her organs will be donated to the hospital. Ti-Jeanne realizes that Tony may have something to do with Mami’s death, but it is too late, as he has already fled the house. In despair, Ti-Jeanne cries out towards the ambulance driving away with Mami.
Chapter 8 Summary
Once the red mist enters Mi-Jeanne’s body, she comes to full consciousness as herself. In place of using a dead body for a duppy, Rudy stole Mi-Jeanne’s spirit, harnessing her power by separating her consciousness from her body. Mi-Jeanne has been doing Rudy’s bidding through his control of the duppy bowl, and she has had no choice but to obey. Ti-Jeanne returns to the house and is surprised to find her mother returned to her old self. Mi-Jeanne tells her that, since Rudy’s instructions to follow Tony were vague, “[h]e had given it a chance for freedom” (156). She tried to reach her body first to send a warning to her and Mami. She says that Ti-Jeanne is the only one who can free her spirit by breaking Rudy’s duppy bowl and killing Rudy. She reveals that Tony is planning to kill Ti-Jeanne. Ti-Jeanne locates a gun, but not before Tony arrives and tearfully instructs his lover to put her hands up where he can see them.
Tony readies himself to shoot Ti-Jeanne, but not before Mi-Jeanne starts approaching him. He shoots Mi-Jeanne in the chest, killing her human body and releasing the duppy from her corpse. The duppy is the same Soucouyant that came to Mami’s house before. Ti-Jeanne tries to talk to her mother, the Soucouyant, but Mi-Jeanne’s duppy form attacks her. It occurs to Ti-Jeanne that while Rudy has instructed her mother to kill her and Tony, he did not specify how it had to happen. She bargains with the duppy, “But he ain’t tell you when, Mummy, and he ain’t tell you where?” (164). Ti-Jeanne asks Mi-Jeanne to let her and Tony live until she kills Rudy and frees her spirit from his possession. Mi-Jeanne stops her attack, acquiescing to the request. With Baby in her arms, Ti-Jeanne guides Mi-Jeanne and Tony to Rudy.
Chapters 6-8 Analysis
Whereas Mami’s spiritual practice is aimed at healing and maintaining a natural balance in the world, Rudy’s interpretation of the same spiritual practice operates out of self-interest. His corruption of a sacred practice by perverting the natural order of life and death is paralleled by his drug trade. Just as his spiritual power renders another impotent through the duppy, he uses buff to zombify those around him to do his bidding. He preys on Tony’s use of buff to manipulate him to carry out a murder and the subsequent acquisition of a human heart. He also uses toad poison, from which buff is derived, to immobilize Tony and Melba. The poison is used to paralyze Melba so that she can be bled out for Rudy’s duppy bowl, and Rudy also applies it again to Tony to force him to watch the gruesome process. Buff becomes a way of exerting not only physical but psychological control, much like Rudy’s interpretation of Mami’s spiritual knowledge for his own gain.
Ti-Jeanne learns an important lesson in these chapters about the danger of choosing men over her matrilineal line. Her investment in Tony’s redemption leads to disaster for her family just as Mi-Jeanne’s initial allegiance to Rudy leads to her victimization. When Ti-Jeanne welcomes Tony back into the house despite his abandonment of her, Mami is killed in the process by his hand. She realizes her error in placing her faith in him instead of heeding Mami’s cautions. Mi-Jeanne’s return also signals a necessary turning point in Ti-Jeanne’s life where she must recommit herself to healing the matrilineal line of her family by ending the violence of men.
Mi-Jeanne’s revelation of her identity as the duppy carrying out Rudy’s bidding is both a figurative and literal extension of familial abuse and incest. Rudy abuses his power as an older father figure to convince Mi-Jeanne to relinquish her agency over her soul and body to grant him his spiritual abilities. He preys on the inherited powers of his family’s matrilineal line to achieve his selfish desires. This abuse is carried out not only through his physical violence towards Mami but also psychological control of his daughter. He eventually attempts to gain control of Ti-Jeanne too, perpetuating the cycle of violence across generations just as familial abuse and incest often occurs. As the duppy is a metaphor and literal embodiment of victimhood through abuse and incest, Ti-Jeanne’s eventual refusal of this form demonstrates breaking this cycle of familial violence for herself and future generations.
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