A Wine of seAstonishment - Not Edit 0 1

The Novel
The Wine of Astonishment is the story of the struggle of a Spiritual Baptist community, from the passing of the Prohibition Ordinance in 1917 until the lifting of the ban in 1951. It is told by one of the members of the church. Eva begins her narrative of the trials and sufferings of those of the Spiritual Baptist faith with the notion that there is a purpose behind it all. The only hope for the villagers of Bonasse, as they see it, lies in Ivan Morton, a teacher turned politician, the new man in the legislative council of the country. They would like Morton to intervene on their behalf to lift the ban so that they can be free to worship in the way that they choose. Morton disappoints them and reveals his loyalty when he abandons the house that his father build with his own two hands. With his wife, he leaves the village, taking nothing, to live in the big house on top of Bonasse hill looking over the sea and the whole village. The house, which some say is haunted, has itself been abandoned by the Richardsons, colonials who have returned to England. Meanwhile, the village undergoes significant changes with the coming of the war. An American base is established in the country, resulting in prostitution and the corruption of the youth. At the same time, the Spiritual Baptists suffer persecution at the hands of the police and government. At the center of this harassment is the cruel and relentless Corporal Prince, whom Bolo, the warrior and champion stick fighter, suggests should be killed. Bolo challenges Prince as Prince takes the worshippers to jail, but he is beaten and arrested by the police while the others look on passively. For his action, Bolo is sent to jail for three years of hard labor. While the warrior Bolo is in jail, the people of Bonasse, believing this to be the time of the intellectual, work to elect Morton to the legislative council, seeing him as a man to plead [their] cause, to change the law, to right the wrong that is going on against [them] for those long years. Bolo returns from jail only to find his efforts at making an honest living frustrated by the bureaucracy. Contemptuous of the community, Bolo challenges the stickmen to do battle with him, but no one obliges. From this point on, the warrior in Bolo degenerates into the badjohn. He terrorizes the Bonasse community with his recklessness and vexation and wickedness boiling up in him. The communitys outrage reaches a limit when Bolo takes the two daughters of one of the villagers to live with him. Determined to show him we is a people, Bee, the leader of the Spiritual Baptists, decides that they have to go against him with strength and anger. They must take up their manhood challenge that [they] turn away from for too long. Bolo is finally killed by the police in a showdown. Shortly thereafter, with the approach of elections, a law is passed allowing the Baptists the freedom to worship in their own way. When the church congregation gathers to celebrate its freedom, however, the Spirit just wouldnt come, in spite of the impassioned preaching, incense burning, and candle lighting. The sadness that Eva, Bee, and the others experience at this realization is assuaged by the music of the steel pans that they hear on their way home. They are convinced that the pan music has in it the same spirit that we miss in our church.

The Characters
Since all the characters in the novel are presented through the eyes of Eva, it is important that she is presented as a credible character. A member of the Baptist church herself and an ordinary peasant woman, she is capable of insightful thinking and profound analysis of her society. Lovelaces effective use of dialect in Evas mouth makes her that much more reliable in her judgment of people and events. Bolo, the warrior turned bad john, represents rebelliousness within the society. As warrior, he is both admired and feared. He is the only one to stand up to the police and proclaim the rights of the people, but when the people refuse to support him and fail to stand up for their rights, he turns to terrorizing them, forcing them to find their people hood

At a glance:

Author: Earl Lovelace First Published: 1982 Type of Work: Novel Type of Plot: Social realism Time of Work: The 1940s and 1950s Setting: Bonasse, Trinidad Principal Characters: Eva, Bee, Bolo, Ivan Morton, Prince Genres: Long fiction, Social realism Subjects: 1950s, Culture, Tradition, Caribbean, Racism, Blacks, Social issues, 1940s, Villages, 1930s, Moral conditions, Catholics or Catholic Church, Warships Locales: Bonasse, Trinidad

In Earl Lovelace's book The Wine of Astonishment two main characters arise Bee and Bolo. Bolo's character is a warrior and he directs the people to the path of empowerment by way of the warrior for that is what he knows and who he is. Bee's character is a man of faith, patience, and a man of his people. Bee also chooses a path of empowerment for the people of the village that is defined by his character, he guides the people to the path of faith. The journey in the book has both men put their characters and paths of empowerment to the test. Who succeeds? Patience, a man of faith, and a man of the people are how I describe Bee's charcter in this book. Bee demonstrates his patience when it is tested against Corporal Price. Prince comes to the village to enforce the law against the Spiritual Baptist. Bee decides it is best to practice in the manners of the Catholics and Anglican until he one day starts preaching in the original manner of the Spiritual Baptist. After that vitalizing sermon he continues till Corporal Price raids the church. Bee realizes that for the benefit of his people they, he must wait, be patient till this injustice is lifted to preach again in the Spiritual Baptist way. Bee is truly a man of the people. In the incident when Corporal Prince raids the church Bee's first thoughts were for the people. Bee tells them Brethren, please don't run. Please don't give them the excuse to brutalize you. He knew how the police would act toward the congregation and he wanted to protect his people. Bee puts the people of the village first for he is a man of the people. Bee is a man of faith. He puts his faith in the Spirit, and the people to stay strong. In continuing with the occurrence of the raid from Corporal Prince you can see Bee's faith. The faith Bee has for the Spirit and the people when the congregation is walked though the village after being arrested and Bee joins in the hymn started by Sister Isabel which the whole congregation then joins. The hymn goes I never get weary yet, I never get weary yet, Forty long years I work in the field, And I never get weary yet. Saying they have done this a long time now and they have still stayed strong. Here Bee puts his faith in the people and the Spirit together from the uniting of the congregation in the song of the Spirit. Bee is a man of faith, his people, and of patience, with these examples you can understand why I characterize Bee in this manner. The first descriptive words you read about Bolo are rising like a spear out of the back row, with the rest of the congregation, to sing the first hymn was Bolo. With a new kind of toughness about him, a warrior still. I would character Bolo as a warrior defiantly. He is a soldier for his people in this time of oppression. Bolo started as a warrior in the beginning and ended as warrior. When he began as a warrior with stickfighting as the book describes Bolo was in Bonasse, the champion stickfighter, the king, leading the village

in battles down the length and breadth of the island. Bolo fought in pride for the warrior inside during those times of stickfighting. Bolo's warrior disposition continued when Corporal Price was transporting the congregation (including Bolo's mother) to the police station for breaking the law of worshiping in the Spiritual Baptist manner. Bolo made a stand for the people he was their soldier willing to fight even being out numbered. The book refers to how Bolo headbutted Price till he went down. At same time Prince was going down the 9 other police office jumped Bolo. He continued to fight and fight till his head was split open by a police officer. Bolo was a warrior no matter the odds he had to face. The last demonstration of Bolo's warrior character was when he stood on the porch with Primus's 2 girls that he had taken earlier. He waited for the people to retrieve these girls. He was not going to let them go until the people made their stand to him and showed him they are warriors. He was a warrior and should be faced as a warrior by warriors. A few people of the village showed and the police. The police knew Bolo would not cooperate with them and ended up shooting him. The warrior thrived in Bolo even to the end of his life. Bee's path for empowerment is faith, have faith and it will show you the way. The book starts Bee's path of faith in the church. He peaches his powerful sermons to the congregation guiding them to put faith in the Spirit. At a time when Spiritual Baptist practice is outlawed they would still come together and place their faith is the Spirit as a congregation. A good example of this is how they were forced to move their church to the out skirts of town to continue to practice this religion. Instead of converting to one of the accepted religions they choose to relocate. Bee and the congregation placed their faith in the Spirit to help them through this time of relocation. Bee focused his faith and the faith of the people to the government. He felt that if the people have faith in the government they could work at making changes to the village and what better way to do that than elect a man from your own village, Ivan Morton to the Council. Bee put his trust in Ivan and guided the people to do the same. Bee said Who we want in the Council is a man that qualify. What we want is a man with education just as the people in Britain. And we have that man here, This is the man! Born right here, a man of knowledge and understanding to represent the people: Ivan Morton! to tell the people that Ivan is a man of the village and they should support him and put their faith in Ivan. That began their faith in the government by having a man from the village on the Council to support them. Bee guided the people to put their faith in Spirit and the government as his choice to empowering the people. Bolo is a warrior at heart. He believes the direction to guide the village to empowerment is to develop the people into warriors. He attempted to do this by example, by urging and by force. An attempt at Bolo trying to lead by example is when he alone stands up against Corporal Prince and the police. The book tells us he is the only one who fights against the police and while his is doing this he affects only one person in the village, Taffy. He tries to join the fight Bolo is baring alone and is held back. Taffy says all o' you stand up there and watch them beat him. And he was fighting for all you along the walk home. Bolo was showing people how to be a warrior and stand up for their beliefs. Bolo continues to impel the people of the village towards being warriors. When stickfighting returns Bolo gets the opportunity to fight, and to show the people how to fight I believe. Bolo gets in the ring with Innocent a fellow stickfighter. They move around each like a dance. Bolo proceeds to make the first blow and Innocent puts his stick down. Bolo urges him to fight to be a warrior. He say Crow crow jumbie-bird crow Jumbie-bird wouldn't crow calling him a coward to persuade Innocent to fight with no success. Bolo then brings the call to anyone saying So nobody going to come in the ring? So nobody ain't fighting? Still no one is willing to fight. With the rage from no response from the people he made one last attempt that night to stickfight by crushing and destroying the drums and saying Who don't like it come and beat me.

Come and beat me. Bolo urged the people of the village onto the warrior's path without success. After this is when Bolo decided he would force the village to become warriors. He would force this on them as individuals by harassing and provoking the people. Bolo pressed the people of the village to stand up for themselves and be warriors. His last extreme effort was when he stood on the porch with Primus's 2 girls that he had just taken because he wanted to the book states. He was not giving the village a choice but forcing them to stand up and be a warriors now. Bolo wanted the people to retrieve these girls and not the police. He was not going to let them go until the people made their stand to him and showed him they are warriors. The police ended up shooting him. The few people who showed were the only ones to face Bolo as warriors and recover the girls. With Bolo using extreme force he did succeed with a few people of the village showing they have warriors in them. The path Bolo selected to empower the people though the warrior did not reach the whole of the people nevertheless it did reach a few. Bee and Bolo two different characters who chose two different paths to empower the people of Bonasse. Bolo chose a warrior's path of empowerment which represented his character. Bee's character showed his faith and he used his faith for his path of empowerment. In the end keeping faith prevailed, the ban on the religion of the Spiritual Baptist was lifted. And this is the goal Bee was after. There are always many solutions to a problem you have to decide what is the best for you way to answer it. It will define your character and your path of life.
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. Bee, on the other hand, represents the voice of moderation and patience. Unwilling to challenge the authorities directly, he seeks to use the political and legal machinery to change things. His slow approach results in a falling off of the churchs membership and the loss of the Spirit in the church. Bolo tries to show Bee the inadequacy of this approach. In time, Bee echoes Bolos sentiments: We shoulda never stop worshipping in the true Baptist way and we shoulda fight them, we shoulda kill Prince. Eva, with her commonsense approach to survival, reminds him of the wisdom of his decision. Ivan Mortons character is used to discuss a phenomenon within Caribbean society, that of the self-seeking

politician who takes the people for fools, bribing them at election time but doing nothing for them for the rest of his term. Morton is the typical neocolonial puppet who seeks to take over from the colonial overlord while perpetuating all the bad habits of his predecessor. Armed with his colonial education, Morton thinks of himself as the natural leader of the people, but when he is elected, he abandons his village, rejects the dark-skinned Eulalie whom he had made pregnant, and goes to live in a colonial mansion overlooking the village. From this vantage point, it is easy for Morton to betray the interests of the community. The lack of third-person narration in the novel places limitations on the depth of characterization, since it is from Evas restricted knowledge that the characters are presented. Moreover, characters are presented as types or symbols; they are one-dimensional. Each one represents a specific type or mode of social behavior. No one changes except Bolo, who moves from being a warrior to being a badjohn with respect for no one.

Themes and Meanings

Lovelace is consistently focused on the powerlessness of the black masses in the Caribbean and the consequent struggle they must go through to achieve dignity and peoplehood. In The Wine of Astonishment, the Spiritual Baptists are powerless against colonial law, which defines them as illegal and illegitimate. The result is that they cannot worship in the true Baptist way. They cannot ring their bell, burn their incense, and light their candles; nor do their ministers have the authority to marry anybody. Refusing to exercise the power that rightfully belongs to them, the people in their collective impotence look upon the scholar, intellectual, and politicianin this case, Ivan Mortonto fight for them. In an obvious criticism of Caribbean political leadership, Lovelace depicts Morton as a man who alienates himself from his community and finally betrays that community as he promotes his self-interest. The betrayal makes him one with the colonial overlord in the eyes of the village. He comes to the people only when he is seeking their votes, but once he is elected, he has no use for them. In time, the people come to see through these election gimmicks and begin to realize that this sudden rush to answer applications for land, this sudden rush to put up crash programs to give a man a job for a week or two is just a trick for election. Lovelace suggests that it is only when the people realize that the power is with them, only when they look inward to themselves, will they be able to achieve their dignity as a people. Eva, clear-sighted woman that she is, reveals this notion to her husband when he seeks to lay the blame for their predicament on Ivan Morton: For if we didnt have the strength, if we didnt have the power, if we wasnt standing up on our own as a people, what was he there standing up for? We is a lot of people but we aint a people. This is Lovelaces way of criticizing the people of the Caribbean for placing too much emphasis on their political leaders and insufficient emphasis on themselves as a people. Lovelace knows that the struggle for peoplehood demands sacrifice, for which the people must accept full responsibility. In the novel, Bolo embodies that sacrifice. He must die so that the people can survive. Very early in the novel, Eva observes that the warrior was dying in the village as the chief figure. The change in focus from warrior to scholar means that the people are ready to do away with one while embracing the other. Once Bolo performs his role, there is no use for him, but he must first challenge the people to locate their power within themselves by standing up for their right to worship in the Baptist way. Bolo shows them how, but they refuse to take heed. He alone must bear the brunt of the beating by Corporal Prince and his men. Bolo loses respect for them, concluding that they are not prepared to challenge the law in order to continue worshiping in their way. It is no wonder that he confronts the whole community of Bonasse in his deterioration from warrior to badjohn. It is only at the very end that Bee understands that Bolos role is to be the sacrifice. To be the one terrible enough and strong enough and close enough to our heart to drive us to take up our manhood challenge that we turn away from for too long. Bolos role is to push the people until they have to stand up against him. Only then can they redeem themselves, but he has to die in the process. The Wine of Astonishment celebrates more than the peoples struggle for freedom. It also celebrates the culture that nurtures that struggle and that in turn is created out of the struggle. As in The Dragon Cant Dance(1979), Lovelace is principally concerned with the culture that the masses of African people of the Caribbean have been able to develop. Whether it is through stick fighting, playing mas, worshiping in the Baptist faith, or

playing in steel bands, Lovelace is fascinated by the manner in which black people have been able to use their retention of African culture, adopting and transforming that culture in the process. The stick fighting that Bolo excels in was more the dance, the adventure, the ceremony to show off the beauty of the warrior. Bolos skills are the skills of the people. He wants them to know, through his skill, that they are people too, with drums and song and warriors. As the society undergoes changes, the culture changes as well. Some aspects are lost altogether; others are transformed. The warrior tradition that sustains and gives impetus to Bolo disappears as the society welcomes education as the way to win the battle to be somebody. Similarly, the Baptist church, which represents the syncretism of African and Christian religious beliefs and practices, is a living testimony to the black culture of the people. The religion is testimony of the adaptability of the peoples culture, and it is precisely the African elements in it that the authorities seek to repress. They condemn the form of worship, and they forbid the singing of hymns, the lighting of candles, and the burning of incense. The result is that the church gradually loses the Spirit, central to making it a black church. All is not lost, however; the Spirit missing in the church has gone over to the steel band. Both Eva and Bee recognize it as the same Spirit. As they pass the steel band tent, with music being played by some young fellows, bare-back and with tear-up clothes, they get the feeling that they are passing in front of something holy. In typical Lovelace style, the sacred and the secular have been brought together. The struggle has been painful, but there is hope at the end. The people and their culture survive, making their struggle for dignity, for their peoplehood and their freedom, a realizable objective.

Critical Context
Fourth among his published novels, The Wine of Astonishment shares with Lovelaces other works his continuing concern for the black oppressed people of the Caribbean. Lovelace is not afraid to confront the social issues of the day. The prevalence of political corruption, the destructiveness of misguided warriorship, the Western and class bias against African culture (in this case a religion), and betrayal by black middle-class intellectuals are issues that plague the postcolonial societies of the region. Lovelace, unlike other writers who address the problems of the society, is not altogether hopeless in his prognostication. The ills of the society and the corruptibility of individuals and institutions are balanced by the ability of the people to adapt and survive, constantly creating new cultural forms to ensure their dignity and personhood. The spirit may leave the church, but the steel band is created to inherit that spirit. Another achievement of Lovelaces The Wine of Astonishment is his ability to deliver his narrative through Eva, herself a Spiritual Baptist. He captures both the language and the sentiments of the Baptist community with a sensibility that suggests a deep understanding of that religion. That he can sustain both for an entire novel is truly a mark of great skill as a writer. In the introduction to the 1986 edition of his text, critic Marjorie Thorpe notes that this linguistic skill from the outset, encourages the reader to believe that he is in fact listening to the artless, unstructured narrative of a simple peasant woman. Just as he had infused the rhythm of the steel band and calypso into the language of the ordinary folk in The Dragon Cant Dance, Lovelace infuses the rhythm of the Trinidad dialect and the Baptist sermon into the language of Eva in The Wine of Astonishment. At times, this language reflects the spirit possession characteristic of the Baptist church. As he had done in his previous novel, he eschews grammatical convention and chooses to focus on capturing the rhythm of the Baptist religious service in his writing.
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