43 pages • 1 hour read
Michelle CliffNo Telephone to Heaven
Michelle CliffFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Ruinate”
The novel opens with Clare Savage—the novel’s protagonist—traveling along a gravel road through the Jamaican countryside. She rides in a truck with a group of anti-imperialist Jamaican revolutionaries, all similarly dressed in khakis. In the back of the truck is a stack of guns—in wooden boxes labeled “MADE IN USA” (11)—covered in a tarpaulin.
To obtain these guns, the revolutionaries traded the ganja (marijuana) they cultivated on land Clare’s family owned. The group also used the land to grow food, with the hope of assisting the poor and hungry Jamaican communities around them. With the group, Clare distributed surplus food, walking from house to house carrying a food-laden basket on her head.
Chapter 1 Analysis
Chapter 1 introduces “ruination”—the consumption of landmarks and cultivated land by overgrowth—as both a negative and positive symbol within No Telephone to Heaven. Ruination is a negative symbol in the sense that it embodies the decay of Jamaica, including poverty, chaotic violence between conflicting political groups, and the abandonment of many families who flee to the US and Britain. Ruination is also a positive symbol, however, as it suggests change and development for new growth (both literal and metaphorical). Reclaiming the “ruinated” land of Clare’s grandmother for new purposes, the revolutionary group is able to grow food not only for themselves, but for impoverished families in the community.
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