Houseboy

‘“Brother,’ he said. ‘Brother, what are we? What are we blackmen who are called French?”

Toundi asks this on his deathbed, signaling his confusion with his own identity and purpose in a world dominated by whites and subservient natives.

“But for me, it is more than mourning. I have died my first death….”

Toundi underscores just what Father Gilbert meant to him by suggesting that he has died as well, almost Christ-like, at the death of the man who meant the most to him in the world.

“I am not a storm. I am the thing that obeys.”

Toundi highlights the difference in demeanor and power between himself and the Commandant; the Commandant gets angry and rages, while Toundi must simply endure it and obey as a servant.