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.
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BetaPart 4, Pages 256-281Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4
Part 4, Pages 256-261 Summary
The main narrator covers another month by saying Tan-Tan did “a deed here, a deed there” in Chigger Bite (256). Tan-Tan starts to hear stories about herself; she is categorized as a duppy, hero, and witch.
Then, the narrative focuses on one night when she takes on three men who are robbing an old man. Tan-Tan becomes so “mesmerized by her own elocution” (257) that she gets jumped by a fourth man and loses her machete. Abitefa saves her and rants at her.
The next night, Tan-Tan goes back to steal a machete and hears stories about how she is not human but an animal or spirit. She recounts these stories to Abitefa later around a cooking fire.
After the theft, Tan-Tan avoids going to the village for a few weeks. Benta tries to teach her how to weave, and Chichibud tries to introduce her to the neighbors, but she struggles with these daytime activities. She also has nightmares. She spends her time teaching herself how to build a hut in the bush. While chopping trees, Tan-Tan feels her unborn baby move and breaks down sobbing, unable to explain her trauma to Abitefa.
Part 4, Pages 261-273 Summary
The narrative catches up to Tan-Tan visiting Chigger Bite again. She has stolen a pot of curry and left it for a poor woman. She is about to head back to the daddy tree when she hears a noise that turns out to be a car—it is what Michael and Gladys were working on in their iron shop.
With them is Janisette, who spots Tan-Tan and shoots at her with a rifle. Tan-Tan runs through the village and into the bush. Grit flies swarm her, and a ground puppy bites her before she can light a match. Hours later, she finds the daddy tree and Chichibud treats her wounds.
Benta worries that Tan-Tan “could have come to grief”; Tan-Tan thinks, “Grief come to me long time” (264). The douens forbid her to go into the bush at night. A week later, Janisette, Michael, and Gladys return; the car is fitted with chains on its wheels to plow through the bush.
Janisette calls for Tan-Tan, but Gladys is sick of the chase and tries to convince her to head back. Michael starts to climb the daddy tree, and the douen men start to pull their knives out on branches above him. Benta’s sister, Taya, attacks Michael, and Gladys shoots her.
After mourning Taya, Kret attacks Gladys, and Janisette shoots him. Tan-Tan “forgot fear, forgot reason” (270) and takes Janisette’s gun. Janisette thinks Antonio’s repeated raping of Tan-Tan is the latter’s fault. Tan-Tan attempts to shoot her, but Chichibud moves the rifle just in time to redirect her bullet to the ground. Chichibud takes the gun and points it at Michael until the humans leave the bush.
Part 4, Pages 273-281 Summary
After the humans retreat, the douens and hintes mourn their dead and debate what to do about the discovery of the daddy tree. Tan-Tan is upset that she brings “trouble” to this community “like a burden on her back” (274). Res, the elder, says they must destroy their home and move.
The others eventually agree and pack up essentials for their diaspora—the migration of a people. Tan-Tan apologizes to Benta for Taya’s death and helps watch babies in the foundry as the daddy tree is cut apart and flown to the sea.
Once the tree is merely a stump, the douens mourn it. Then the douen men pee on the stump; their special occasion urine, the “burning piss” (278) that only adults can produce, starts dissolving it. Chichibud makes sure everyone is free of sap, then lobster-like creatures called little teeth eat anything covered with sap, leaving behind only guano.
New growth springs from the guano, fast enough for Tan-Tan to watch it. Chichibud explains there will be a new, small daddy tree by morning. He also says Tan-Tan and Abitefa cannot come with the migrating douen and hinte; they are exiled from the diaspora.
Part 4, Pages 256-281 Analysis
In this section, Tan-Tan calls her unborn child a “demon” (257) while the villagers begin to call her a variety of supernatural things like a duppy and say she has “ratbat wings like Shaitan out of Hell heself” (258). The baby is eventually redeemed by the end of the novel and Tan-Tan loses her bad, self-deprecating, trauma-born voice. At this point, however, both mother and son are struggling because they bring pain to their hosts.
This pain is seen in the refrain of “trouble” (274) that stretches over the Dry Bone myth and into discussions between Benta and Tan-Tan. The loss of their daddy tree is a sacrifice the village makes to help Tan-Tan (and keep their secrets from the humans). This reflects the folkloric trouble Master Johncrow experiences and overcomes.
Tan-Tan’s masque as the Robber Queen is how she tries to work “off her curse” (256)—she acts as a type of Robin Hood figure for poor villagers to atone for taking Antonio’s life. However, she—and Abitefa—end up exiled from even traveling with the douens and hintes. This sets up their explorations of New Half-Way Tree but causes Tan-Tan to be unhomed for a third time.
