The Story Archive

The Tragedy of King Christophe

Aimé Césaire · 1963 CE · Play · Caribbean · Contemporary

A former slave and innkeeper who fought through the Haitian revolution takes the crown of the northern kingdom, invents a nobility out of his generals, and drives his people to raise a citadel in the mountains to prove to Europe what Black men can build. His ministers flatter him, the labourers desert the works, and the new court comes to ape the one it replaced. First of Césaire's three plays on decolonisation and power.

Open The Tragedy of King Christophe in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Attributes

Genre
Theme
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Plot structure
Symbol / motif
Conflict
Mode / tone
Culture / tradition

Closest analogues