Chapters 10 and 11 Summary

"The Great Beast" begins with a Jamaican proverb that states "No one black dies a natural death." The first part of the chapter picks up where Chapter 8 left off - with Clare and Harriet leaving the riverbank and walking into the nearby town. As they walk, Clare speaks of the various people she remembers, colorful characters with colorful lives. When they reach a shop where Clare wants to purchase a fondly remembered treat, she finds that the saleswoman she remembers from when she was a girl, Miss Cherry, still works there. Their conversation is edgy and almost confrontational, with Miss Cherry speaking disdainfully of the mess country has become. Narration then shifts focus to Harriet who visits her people, is invited to eat dinner, and only afterward realizes that she has eaten a stew made from an iguana, which she later...