Ti-Jean and His Brothers

by

Derek Walcott

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Ti-Jean and His Brothers makes teaching easy.
Gros Jean, Mi-Jean, and Ti-Jean’s impoverished single mother. The boys’ mother is deeply faithful, believing that God will provide her starving family with food and stressing the importance to each of her boys to respect all of God’s creatures before they go off to meet the Devil. The mother’s piousness suggests her resilient spirit: she has lost her husband and lives in abject poverty, but she still has steadfast faith in God. Ti-Jean is the only one of her sons to have absorbed this lesson, and it is through his own faith in God, as well as his humility, that he eventually defeats the Devil.

Mother Quotes in Ti-Jean and His Brothers

The Ti-Jean and His Brothers quotes below are all either spoken by Mother or refer to Mother. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Pride vs. Humility Theme Icon
).
Prologue Quotes

MOTHER: Wait, and God will send us something.
GROS JEAN: God forget where he put us.
MI JEAN: God too irresponsible.

Related Characters: Mi-Jean (speaker), Gros Jean (speaker), Mother (speaker)
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3 Quotes

“You are hardly a man, a stalk, bending in the wind with no will of its own, never proven your self, in battle or wisdom […]”

Related Characters: Mother (speaker), Ti-Jean, Devil / Planter/ Old Man
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:

“You have told me yourself our lives are not ours, that no one’s life is theirs husband or wife, father or son, that our life is God’s own.”

Related Characters: Ti-Jean (speaker), Mother
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Ti-Jean and His Brothers LitChart as a printable PDF.
Ti-Jean and His Brothers PDF

Mother Quotes in Ti-Jean and His Brothers

The Ti-Jean and His Brothers quotes below are all either spoken by Mother or refer to Mother. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Pride vs. Humility Theme Icon
).
Prologue Quotes

MOTHER: Wait, and God will send us something.
GROS JEAN: God forget where he put us.
MI JEAN: God too irresponsible.

Related Characters: Mi-Jean (speaker), Gros Jean (speaker), Mother (speaker)
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3 Quotes

“You are hardly a man, a stalk, bending in the wind with no will of its own, never proven your self, in battle or wisdom […]”

Related Characters: Mother (speaker), Ti-Jean, Devil / Planter/ Old Man
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:

“You have told me yourself our lives are not ours, that no one’s life is theirs husband or wife, father or son, that our life is God’s own.”

Related Characters: Ti-Jean (speaker), Mother
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis: