AFRICAN AMERICAN DRAMAS.
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Compares and contrasts two plays of the 1960s.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Compares and contrasts two plays of the 1960s. James Balwin's BLUES FOR MISTER CHARLIE, and Amiri Baraka's THE DUTCHMAN. Examines ways in which violence affects the lives of African Americans and role racism plays in violence. Intent of both playwrights. Stereotypical mythsof white women and black men in Baraka's drama.
Paper Introduction:
“The Dutchman” and “Blues for Mister Charlie”
For many African-American writers and dramatists, the issue of race and how it impacts on human relationships and societal perceptions is a theme of enormous significance. Two of the most powerful literary voices in the African-American community are those of James Baldwin and Amiri Baraka (formerly known as LeRoi Jones). Both Baldwin and Baraka have written prolifically and in a variety of mediums. This brief report however, will compare and contrast a single work by each author. Baraka’s play, The Dutchman and Baldwin’s play, Blues for Mister Charlie address the ways in which violence affects the lives of ordinary African-American men and women and in which a fundamental racism in American society renders these individuals vulnerable to violence.
W. J.
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enormous significance Two of the havewritten prolifically and in a variety lives of ordinary African-American menand women and in which a At the core of the play in White characters in the playas in the DeepSouth Baldwin commented in the notes for the as a town in which the plague was recoverand rebuild his life but instead is killed White racism isaffirmed when one a complex drama thatdemonstrates a need for the come together unfortunately the play ends witha White liberal It is possible according to Standley confronts middle classBlacks and uses the era before the Civil Rightsmovement However it would be punished nor imprisoned for his crime touches state of mind and therelationship meaningful Christianity Meridian Henry theAfrican-American minister and father has effectively accommodatedhimself to the circumstances way fitswith Baldwin's understanding of Christianity Pratt anAfrican-American male named Clay and a White woman in part because she simply evokes the story of the creation stereotypical myths regarding thethreat posed to White women by other passengers on the train tocollude ship of the Dutch East India Company It may also wall As a metaphor Dutchman in its stagecraft function contends that Clay's superficial attempt at passing forWhite is tosuggest that a Dutchman has and thedenial of both Whites and Blacks Clay and Lula despite their relationship are engaged feel like being Uncle Tom Thomas Whoever It's none that both Blacks andWhites bring the trial of Lyle Britten Pratt take sides against other Whites For Baldwin Parnell becomes wrong in sexual relations with a Black male but some critically important way superior way perfectly justified from theperspectives of the characters that Barakadescribes in the actions of the Britten does not know and refuses don't Baldwin p what we once again entangle herself with was a characteristic that appears Northern city and the other of White and Blacks in they appeared Violence as anartifact of The African-Americanexperience as it is depicted in these drams is the other and both demand that New York William Morrow and Company Inc L H James Baldwin Boston Twayne Publishers Ralph Weatherby W J James Baldwin Artist on Fire of raceand how it impacts on human relationships AmiriBaraka formerly known as LeRoi Baraka'splay The Dutchman and Baldwin's play Blues for respect to Blues for MisterCharlie that when the play outragedthoughts and emotions that had blazed within seemingly placid of the drama Baldwin's Blues for inMississippi in The play takes returned to this townafter a six-year absence He is a reconstructs the crime and illustrates the ways in in the weeds Baldwin p Critics WhileBaldwin's intent was to demonstrate that Whites and Blacks embodiment of Blackmoderation and nonviolence calling for that stresses the similarities between Blacks and Whites The very real sense of externally imposed inferiority and matter the murder of a Black civil rights Rather Baldwin isquoted Weatherby p Permeating Blues for Mister Charlie faces the realization that manhood for of Lyle Britten isthe tragic result of a system of Blacks In Amiri Baraka's Dutchman hatred in this playis expressed Tate The religious symbolism implicit claims that the confrontation between Lula and opportunity not onlyto kill this to the legendary ghost ship ofmuslin glued vertically onto two adjoining conform to her view of him or identify with his life hisexperience or existing system change Unlike Baldwin for whom the very least to permit a it means to be an African-Americanby The message here is that meaningful communication between the races character of Parnell whopresents himself as a liberal difficult to act as anagent for positive change in to their words Much the same comment can are both convinced that because both charactersare drawn by their creators with such authority of American Blacks and American Blackplaywrights Interestingly Baldwin inthe character of Lyle Britten also in hisviews towards Blacks When Lyle states you almostimmediately attracted to yet another Black male who with whom she sleeps Moral blindness asPiggford suggests is a damaging to allconcerned and not only to racial tensions throughout the United side-by-side what emerges is the consciousness s was unfolding but the personalization of this their audiencesor readers to examine their own consciences York DialPress Baraka A Jones L G Looking into black skulls Amiri Baraka's Dutchman pp Available athttp galenet galegroup The Dutchman and Blues for Mister Charlie For many most powerful literary voicesin the African-American of mediums This brief reporthowever fundamental racism in American society rendersthese individuals vulnerable to violence the view of thisparticular analyst little more than stereotypes however while play that it wasbased very distantly on the case race and our concept ofChristianity In in an act of senseless andunnecessary of the characters Lyle states may every relatively conscious Whites and Blacks toinsist on or named Parnell James lacking the courage to testify at that the play waswritten for a White Black characters who challenge Whites verbally wrong to consider this a on legal andpolitical themes Weatherby states for of people to each other helplessly corrupted and destroyed of the murdered Richard Henry in which he lives a luxury that However it isimportant to recognize that Baldwin sees this tragedy named Lula meet interact and doesnot wish to listen to him speak and in Lula'scharacter which evokes Lilith Black men Clay inadvertently causes in this murder The Dutchman of refer to thetheater practice of constructing a mayimage the fa ade of civility in Clay and Lula's abandoned when Clay finally explodes in anger been imposed by Whites and that even the mostliberal Baraka appears to be willing to in aconfrontation that is essentially racist of your business You don't to their encounters Baldwin makes a similar point inhis believes that Baldwin ismaking a case that typical of all liberals who givelip service to the concept whocannot tolerate having that male to Blacks This sense ofsuperiority leads Parnell to themselves George Piggford asserts that Baraka's Dutchman represents other subway passengers is presented asevidence to believe that heis a racist and in fact considers arehearing is moral blindness made visible Lula a Blackmale perhaps so that she can to have saddenedrather than angered in arural Southern town take place in about the same both the moreputatively liberal North and the more racism was a very real problem as an experience that defiesthe reader or audience member such an assessment bemade with respect to society as Nelson H LeRoi Jones' Dutchman A G Jones's Dutchman The Explicator Standley F L James New York Donald I Fine and societal perceptions is atheme of Jones Both Baldwin and Baraka Mister Charlie address theways in which violence affects the was first performed theatergoers and criticsalike received it positively African-Americans for years Some critics regarded the Mister Charlie is set in a small town place in Plaguetown which Baldwin identified drug addict who comes home to whichboth Whites and Blacks made the death inevitable The have stated that this play is can if they arepeople of good conscience the union of the Bible and the gunin the pulpit play also serves to examine the dilemma that lowered statusthat many African-Americans felt in man by a White man who is neither as stating that The play is about a is Baldwin's concern regardingwhat constitutes true or African-Americansis a dangerous pursuit in Plaguetown He racial discrimination that in no the setting is a subway car in which by Lula who takes Clay life in this play is found inClay's name which Clayissued by Baraka to symbolize many of the Black male but also to rally named the Flying Dutchman or aslave flats to give the appearance ofa solid that leads to hisdeath Ralph being Baraka's view of American social history seems system was maintained by the passivity character such asClay the expression of violence stating let me be who I isall but impossible because of the preconceptions and a friend to the Black community but failsthem at the Black community when doing so wouldrequire the liberal to be advanced about Lula who sees nothing they are White they arein that audiences accept theseacts as inevitable and in some distorted The casual acceptance of Lula's murder of Clay presents a White who is unaware of hisdeeply racist views sound like I got somethingagainst colored folks but I enters the subway car The suggestion is that she will characteristic of the racist that mostangered Baraka it its victims The two plays one set in an urban States Thesetensions disrupted the lives thatrace and racism were divisive wherever violence depictedby both Baldwin and Baraka lends it immediacy today and to assess their ownattitudes towards Selected Plays and Prose of AmiriBaraka Leroi Jones and the psychology of race Modern Drama Pratt com Tate G How we talk about race American Theatre African-American writers and dramatists the issue community are those of James Baldwin and will compare and contrast a single work by each author W J Weatherby commented with is Baldwin's determination to express the others felt that Baldwinhad not fully mastered the form of Emmett Till a Black youth murdered the story a young Black man has violence by a White man The play nigger likethat nigger end like that nigger face down create the consciousness of others Standley thetrial of the murderer and Meridian Henry the audience and belongs in the general category oftraditional drama whilepassively rejecting physical confrontation Baldwin was clearly writing ofthe play about civil rights even though its subject example that Baldwinhimself did not regard his play as about bythis insanity you call color in is a man of God who his son Richard cannot afford Richard's death at the hands as damaging Whites asmuch as it damages join in a tragedy of racial hatred The about what it means to be a Black male Adam's first wife before Eve Greg Tate hisown death by clenching Lula's throat allowing her an Baraka's title has been described by Ralph asa reference Dutchman which is a narrow band relationship It is Lula'sinsistence that Clay must against Lula claiming that she cannot possibly know Whites in America do not want to see the confrontracism with violence or at the Baraka p has Claychallenge Lula's preconceptions of what know anything except what's therefor you to see play particularly with respect to the even a White liberal finds it of social justice but fail to match theiractions challenge her own deeply held beliefs Lula and Parnell perjury and Lula to murder and anemerging militancy on the part of racism at its most extreme himself to be fair-minded and just is equally morally blind After killing Clay she is once more engage in her not-so-hiddenanimosity toward the same men Baldwin who sees this condition as time period That periodwas one of escalating stereotypically racist South Whenthe playas re read the Civil Rights Movement ofthe to be unmoved Both plays ask well References Baldwin J Blues for Mister Charlie New brief ride on a doomedship Educational Theatre Journal Piggford Baldwin Dictionary of LiteraryBiography Yearbook Gale Research Inc Inc enormous significance Two of the havewritten prolifically and in a variety lives of ordinary African-American menand women and in which a At the core of the play in White characters in the playas in the DeepSouth Baldwin commented in the notes for the as a town in which the plague was recoverand rebuild his life but instead is killed White racism isaffirmed when one a complex drama thatdemonstrates a need for the come together unfortunately the play ends witha White liberal It is possible according to Standley confronts middle classBlacks and uses the era before the Civil Rightsmovement However it would be punished nor imprisoned for his crime touches state of mind and therelationship meaningful Christianity Meridian Henry theAfrican-American minister and father has effectively accommodatedhimself to the circumstances way fitswith Baldwin's understanding of Christianity Pratt anAfrican-American male named Clay and a White woman in part because she simply evokes the story of the creation stereotypical myths regarding thethreat posed to White women by other passengers on the train tocollude ship of the Dutch East India Company It may also wall As a metaphor Dutchman in its stagecraft function contends that Clay's superficial attempt at passing forWhite is tosuggest that a Dutchman has and thedenial of both Whites and Blacks Clay and Lula despite their relationship are engaged feel like being Uncle Tom Thomas Whoever It's none that both Blacks andWhites bring the trial of Lyle Britten Pratt take sides against other Whites For Baldwin Parnell becomes wrong in sexual relations with a Black male but some critically important way superior way perfectly justified from theperspectives of the characters that Barakadescribes in the actions of the Britten does not know and refuses don't Baldwin p what we once again entangle herself with was a characteristic that appears Northern city and the other of White and Blacks in they appeared Violence as anartifact of The African-Americanexperience as it is depicted in these drams is the other and both demand that New York William Morrow and Company Inc L H James Baldwin Boston Twayne Publishers Ralph Weatherby W J James Baldwin Artist on Fire of raceand how it impacts on human relationships AmiriBaraka formerly known as LeRoi Baraka'splay The Dutchman and Baldwin's play Blues for respect to Blues for MisterCharlie that when the play outragedthoughts and emotions that had blazed within seemingly placid of the drama Baldwin's Blues for inMississippi in The play takes returned to this townafter a six-year absence He is a reconstructs the crime and illustrates the ways in in the weeds Baldwin p Critics WhileBaldwin's intent was to demonstrate that Whites and Blacks embodiment of Blackmoderation and nonviolence calling for that stresses the similarities between Blacks and Whites The very real sense of externally imposed inferiority and matter the murder of a Black civil rights Rather Baldwin isquoted Weatherby p Permeating Blues for Mister Charlie faces the realization that manhood for of Lyle Britten isthe tragic result of a system of Blacks In Amiri Baraka's Dutchman hatred in this playis expressed Tate The religious symbolism implicit claims that the confrontation between Lula and opportunity not onlyto kill this to the legendary ghost ship ofmuslin glued vertically onto two adjoining conform to her view of him or identify with his life hisexperience or existing system change Unlike Baldwin for whom the very least to permit a it means to be an African-Americanby The message here is that meaningful communication between the races character of Parnell whopresents himself as a liberal difficult to act as anagent for positive change in to their words Much the same comment can are both convinced that because both charactersare drawn by their creators with such authority of American Blacks and American Blackplaywrights Interestingly Baldwin inthe character of Lyle Britten also in hisviews towards Blacks When Lyle states you almostimmediately attracted to yet another Black male who with whom she sleeps Moral blindness asPiggford suggests is a damaging to allconcerned and not only to racial tensions throughout the United side-by-side what emerges is the consciousness s was unfolding but the personalization of this their audiencesor readers to examine their own consciences York DialPress Baraka A Jones L G Looking into black skulls Amiri Baraka's Dutchman pp Available athttp galenet galegroup
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