The Dragon Can't Dance

"But, for all his apparent casualness, he had read Marx and grounded on Fanon and Malcolm X and he was on the outskirts of what called itself a Socialist Movement, involving professionals and fellows from the University of the West Indies."

Earl Lovelace’s The Dragon Can’t Dance, is widely considered one of the best novels to come out of not only Trinidad but the Caribbean. Indeed, it is a well-written, poetic novel about self-liberation from the colonial psyche set in the fictional slum of Calvary Hill in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. Lovelace explores the impact of the colonial psyche and discovering one’s identity through multiple characters, such as the protagonist, Aldrick, Pariag, a man of Indian descent who leaves the countryside for Port-of-Spain, Philo, a calypso singer, and many others. Lovelace also uses Trinidadian dialect for dialogue combined with a standard English prose imbued with lyrical genius. Thus, the novel has some similar themes with Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby, specifically regarding how people of African descent respond to the extreme rationalism and regimented, authoritarian social orders and labor systems associated with plantation slavery and the industrial West. 

Aldrick, the novel’s protagonist, initially saw the way of life of the people of the slums as the best response: avoiding the strict, western hegemonic rationality and devoting one’s life to idleness and living day to day. Son, in Morrison’s Tar Baby, has the same initial response as Aldrick, the dragon masquerader in Carnival, but through his relationship with Jadine, who wholly absorbs the Eurocentric mould, eventually is forced to make a decision altering his life forever. Likewise, Aldrick eventually realizes the errors of his past ways after partaking in hijacking and kidnapping of a police jeep and 2 officers, in a vain attempt to lift the consciousness of the people of Trinidad, demanding freedom, liberty, democracy. He acknowledges that driving around in a car, asking for freedom and respect will never end slavery or neocolonialism; in order to liberate the masses, people in Calvary Hill and other slums of Port-of-Spain must rise up by acting like free, human beings. The false dichotomy of selling oneself for the so-called free, but troubled existence of idleness or giving into the Eurocentric approach to life, represented by Guy in the novel, will not bring liberation. Indeed, Lovelace also cleverly but not so subtly critiques Afrocentric, black nationalist, Afro-wearing blacks, socialists, and other self-proclaimed radicals who do nothing to seize their humanity.

Lovelace has a unique style and literary voice. I recommend this novel although it may be hard for those unaccustomed to Trinidadian culture, especially regarding food, language, and cultural elements pertaining to Carnival, calypso, and the multiracial character of Trinidad. This is seen in the novel through the mulatto, Cleothilda, and Pariag, the Indo-Trinidadian who wants to befriend Afro-Trinidadian Creoles in Calvary Hill but the ethnic differences continue to divide. Overall, this is a fascinating read that deserves multiple readings to truly comprehend the metaphor of Carnival for Trinidad’s persistent colonized mentality and the African-derived traditions influencing the masquerade and Carnival celebration. Moreover, with the focus on characters of lower socio-economic status, Lovelace depicts the lumpenproletariat as saviors of themselves, with the only avenue to liberation coming from themselves alone.