It is 1961 and Trinidad, at once a lush island paradise and a poverty-stricken hole, is inching toward independence. Narpat, a sugar cane farmer, finds himself caught at the crossroads of a changing world. He is a hard-working man of modest means, and is sickened by the corruption and materialism running rampant on the island. Through a series of stringent moral codes and dietary injunctions, he sets about to create order within his family and the village. His rules impose a great deal of deprivation on his wife and four children. While Narpat decides to single-handedly build a factory to prevent the loss of his livelihood, his youngest son Jeeves watches his father's obsession with the factory, watches his mother's health decline, and watches as she dies. Unable to prevent his mother's death, he tries to redeem his father by constantly reminding him of the fables the older man told to his young children. And these fables, with their undertones of pledges and duty, steel the son for a terrible sacrifice.