Tar Baby

Isle des Chevaliers earns its name from the fisherman’s tale of how a ship sank off its coast after hundreds of enslaved people on board go blind after seeing Dominique. When the ship sinks, the enslaved people and the horses aboard the ship wash up on the island and make a home. It is said that they still ride across the island in secret. Despite this being the official story behind the island, different characters have different expectations of les chevaliers. Les chevaliers become a motif that demonstrates how the intersection of social class and race can influence characters’ perception. During the contentious Christmas dinner, both Valerian and Son think of les chevaliers in opposing ways. Son, who knows the story, sees the blind men and women in his mind:

Somewhere in the back of Son’s mind one hundred black men on one hundred unshod horses rode blind and naked through the hills and had done so for hundreds of years. They knew the rain forest when it was a rain forest, they knew where the river began, where the roots twisted above the ground; they knew all there was to know about the island (206).

Son sees riders that, though blind, know the island better than anyone could. They’ve lived on the island for over a hundred years and know it as their home, escaping slavery and making their own community. He sees a community strengthened by their experiences and unity. He, like les chevaliers, washes up on the island and tries to find a way back to his own life and people. While at L’Arbe de la Croix, he pushes back against Valerian and defends local people like Gideon and Thérèse.

Across the table, Valerian also thinks of les chevaliers, but in a completely different manner. Valerian prefers the version of the story told by one of his neighbors and in his mind replaces the island with his home only. His perception of les chevaliers is one based entirely in European culture and history:

Somewhere in the back of Valerian’s mind one hundred French chevaliers were roaming the hills on horses. Their swords were in their scabbards and their epaulets glittered in the sun. Backs straight, shoulders high-alert but restful in the security of the Napoleonic Code (206).

For Valerian, military imagery creates an expectation that les chevaliers are on the island to protect it and use their code to maintain order. Their presence, in Valerian’s mind, is meant to support and protect him. While Son’s perception of les chevaliers is a community, Valerian’s image is a force. One group is comprised of escaped enslaved people building a new community for themselves in freedom, while the other is a military unit established to conquer and keep a land that is not theirs. Valerian is in many ways one of those soldiers, buying the island and selling parcels of land to other wealthy vacationers, using local people like Thérèse, a supposed descendant of the blind race, to live a comfortable life. Valerian’s and Son’s chevaliers represent who each man is and how he relates to the island and its inhabitants.