[1] His integral role in the development of political and cultural nationalism is evidenced in his being awarded the high honour of the Order of Jamaica in 1978.
He also wrote several plays, reviews, and short stories for Edna Manley's cultural journal, Focus, and the newspaper, The Daily Gleaner; his topics most frequently were the social injustice and inequality suffered by black, poor Jamaicans.
[5] Mais' play George William Gordon was also published in the 1940s, focusing on a politician and martyr of the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865.
In conventional colonial history Gordon was described as a rebel and traitor, but on the centenary of the rebellion, he was declared to be a Jamaican National Hero.
[6] On 11 July 1944, Roger Mais published an article titled "Now We Know," a denunciation of the British Empire, in Public Opinion, in which he claimed that it was now clear that the Second World War was not a fight for freedom but a war to preserve imperial privilege and exploitation: "That the sun may never set upon privilege, repression and exploitation and upon the insolence and arrogance of one race to all others... That the sun may never set upon the great British tradition of Democracy which chains men and women and little children with more than physical chains, chains of ignorance and the apathy of the underfed, and the submissiveness, which is a spiritual sickness in the thews and sinews of a man; chains them in dungeons of gold mines and silver mines and diamond mines, and upon sugar plantations, and upon rubber plantations and tea plantations.
For the great idea of Democracy which relegates all "niggers" of whichever race, to their proper place in the scheme of political economy."
The plays Masks and Paper Hats and Hurricane were performed in 1943, Atlanta in Calydon in 1950; The Potter's Field was published in Public Opinion (1950), and The First Sacrifice in Focus (1956).
Mais took inspiration from Trinidadian C. L. R. James's novel Minty Alley and short story "Triumph", which illustrated "yard" life.
[12] He wanted the novel to be "essentially realistic, even to the point of seeming violent, rude, expletive, functional, primitive, raw".
There was talk about a renewed self-government and the formation of a West Indian federation, provoking writers and intellectuals from the region to reflect on this optimistic future and to search for forms to give it a local face.
Kamau Brathwaite refers to this as the "jazz novel",[14] where the "words are 'notes' that develop into riffs, themes, and 'choruses,' themselves part of a call/response design based on the aesthetic principle of solo/duo/trio improvisations, with a return, at the end of each 'chorus,' to the basic group/ensemble community.
At the end of this critical year, new leaders, including Mais, appropriately emerged to direct and push for political and social changes.
[17] Roger Mais' works, which include short stories, plays, reviews, and "think pieces" among other genres,[18] all generally have a political undertone to some degree.
Arguably, another important political contribution was his work to build a national identity, and he did this by: "'nativizing' the subjects and concerns of his writing", "supplying a corrective to colonialism by [...] reclaiming subverted or disregarded histories", and "gave authority to the island's language and voice" (Hawthorne).
Raised into a middle-class family with full access to "cultured" traditions, Mais often incorporated a romantic idea into his writings.
By adopting a realistic stance, Mais decided to assume a literary style that would be more representative of the Caribbean national consciousness.
Shows consisted of Romeo and Juliet and reading of Shakespearian plays, but progress towards expressing Caribbean life was being made.
[21] The desire to represent local life and history of the Caribbeans onstage were produced, and the theatre's capability to entertain and to raise concerning questions were acknowledged.
[22] George William Gordon acts as a representation for the lower class, alluding to the oppressions they were forced to endure throughout the play.
The unfair court system, the low wages and their repercussions are stated clearly in the work by anonymous persons acting as a uniting voice for the people.