45 pages • 1 hour read
Nalo HopkinsonMidnight Robber
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaPart 2, Pages 119-141Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2
Part 2, Pages 119-136 Summary
Tan-Tan and Antonio reach Junjuh village, where they see men filling calabashes with water from a well. Chichibud defers to these men, which Tan-Tan does not like because the men see him as lesser because he is not human and treat him like a child. The trio heads to the doctor’s office, and Antonio challenges the men, named One-Eye and Claude, who assert they are the authorities in a world where the Anansi Web is absent.
Along the way, Tan-Tan, Antonio, and Chichibud see people and douens laboring. Some douens greet Chichibud, and he dances a little on his sore leg to celebrate his victory over the mako jumbie. The men show Antonio the “tin box” (125) where rule-breakers are imprisoned, causing him to ask for the rules. They swap stories about how they were exiled on New Half-Way Tree and how One-Eye and Claude became sheriff and deputy.
When they arrive at the doctor’s bungalow, it turns out to be Nursie’s daughter, Aislin, who Antonio impregnated. Quamina, their daughter, was mentally stunted because her mother traveled through the dimension veils while pregnant, but she is happy to play Midnight Robber with Tan-Tan. Chichibud returns to the bush.
Aislin takes Tan-Tan in for dinner, and her ears itch, making the candle flames appear to be “singing” (134). Her headache grows, and she throws up her dinner. Her earbugs’ nanomites were infected because she went through the dimension veils when she was not fully developed.
Part 2, Pages 137-141 Summary
The narrative picks up right before Tan-Tan’s ninth birthday. She wonders about Maka occasionally, and Antonio compares her looks with Ione’s. Antonio and his new partner, Janisette, throw Tan-Tan a fete. Chichibud tells duppy stories, and Claude kisses both One-Eye and Aislin. Quamina gives her a handmade masquerade Robber doll, Chichibud gives her a plant, and Antonio gives her his wedding ring on a band to wear around her neck.
The latter gift causes Janisette to get so drunk she passes out, and Antonio takes Tan-Tan to bed and rapes her. His justification is that she “looks so much like” Ione (141) that he cannot help himself. Antonio promises never to do “the bad thing” (141) again, but the narrator asserts that it happens repeatedly. The section ends with Janisette sobbing over Antonio loving Tan-Tan more than her.
Part 2, Pages 119-141 Analysis
Crossing between worlds dramatically affects people who are still developing; both Tan-Tan and her half-sister Quamina are hurt by their embedded technology after passing through dimension veils. The house eshu will learn how to cross over—a background element happening alongside the narrative of Tan-Tan growing up. This section is an introduction to this development, which is revealed at the novel’s end.
Some villagers in Junjuh openly have queer, polyamorous relationships, such as the relationship between Claude, One-Eye, and Aislin. The runner Antonio encounters in Part 1 also practices polyamory. Queerness seems more generally accepted on the prison planet than in Toussaint, which is characterized as “inside Granny Nanny’s web.”
Hopkinson’s novel has no actual chapter numbers or consistent titling, but there are a few formatted breaks. Tan-Tan’s first sexual assault is offset with asterisks and a page break. Antonio’s raping is subtly foreshadowed in the myth told in the last section because it is mentioned that Tan-Tan populates the Earth after their exile. Myths from a variety of cultures include rape scenes, and Antonio’s mythmaking rape sets up technology’s eventual ability to cross between planets.
Hopkinson also forecasts the rape by italicizing Antonio’s dialogue that repeats before and during the “bad thing.” The phrase “My Little Tan-Tan get so big! You look just like my lost Ione” (137) is offset, without quotation marks, in its own paragraph right before the description of the preparations for Tan-Tan’s fete. This is echoed in the traumatic scene, where Antonio says, “Is just because I missing your mother, and you look so much like she” (141). Finally, Aislin’s attitude towards Antonio and the presence of Quamina also sets up the rape.
