“TROUBLE NEVER SETS LIKE RAIN” PROVERB (IN)DIRECTION IN MICHAEL THELWELL’S THE HARDER THEY COME
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Abstract
In 1980 Jamaican American author Michael Thelwell novelized Perry Henzell’s film, The Harder They Come. Both film and novel
have been highly regarded for their significance in postcolonial discourse and realistic depictions of Jamaican society. One of Thelwell’s significant additions was an abundance of proverbs. Every discernable proverb was extracted from Thelwell’s novel and verified by reputable proverb collections, then organized into table format. Building on knowledge from University of Vermont courses in international proverbs and postcolonial studies, research for this essay covered Jamaican history, proverb-oriented and otherwise, reggae music, and all critical works concerning The Harder They Come. This essay examines the functionality of
proverbs within The Harder They Come. The primary goal of the paper is to show how the proverbs of that text are more complexly meaningful than simply establishing local color. The very structures, origins, and contexts of many of these proverbs evince a powerful ambivalence between tradition and modernity, making the Jamaican postcolonial struggle inherent in colloquial speech.
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