Brother Man

1) A brief  biography on Roger Mais

Roger Mais was a Jamaican writer that saw Rastafarianism as a way of showing spirituality and resistance to his normal middle class life. As a Jamaican writer he created many books and plays besides his famous book Brother Man. Roger Mais used his characters to show how life in the Jamaican ghetto is not always easy. His main character Brother Man is a Rastafarian and is seen as a prophet. According to Kwarme Dawes, Mais saw Rastafarianism during the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties as a significant development in Jamaica. Furthermore Kwarme Dawes stated that " Mais hass preserved for us the purer version of Rasta, Rasta as a devotional force, Rasta as a voice of peace and love....Rasta as something deeply rooted in the Jamaican capacity for suvival." From this we see Roger Mais as a true Jamaican visionary writer who tried to visualize the true way of Rastafarianism.

2) Critics state the book Brother Man " creates the claustrophobia of the ghetto by rarely leaving the walls of the small rooms in the community or the walled in yards where people live in close quarters." this states that critics see this novel as one showing the side of the Jamaican ghetto as a place where people live close to one another and the setting is a good place to show a sense of humbleness to the main character Brother Man, and the way Mais puts Brother Man almost as a Christ figure give the book a sense of reality to what the people in the ghetto would put to someone who is very spiritual which is a prophet.   

3) The religous Aspect of Rastafarianism is the worshiping of one god which is called Haile Selassie I or Jah Rastafari and they believe in the trinity as God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit. They believe that the incarnate of Jesus the Holy Spirit lives within Humans, hence the reason for them saying "I and I".