The Dutchman: A Dramatic Expression of the Relationship Between Whites

Amiri Barakas The Dutchman would be considered a historical allegory that could be mute as this poetic and dramatic expression of the relationship between whites and blacks passim the existence of the United States. These patterns of business relationship are symbolically acted out by the two characters Lula and Clay Lula represents white the States and Clay seems to stand for the novel day Uncle Tom, who has over time been shaped by white America and this slave mentality. The beginning Stage directions seem to form this poem in it of itself. The first line establishes the fictionic qualities of the play. In the debauched underbelly of the city. steamer hot and summer on top, outside. Underground. The subway heaped in modern font myth. (1086) The flying underbelly is the metaphor for the Flying Dutchman, which is harbingering the almost doomed area. as well Baraka puts a lot of emphasis on the word the underground which seems to foreshadow the below surface intentions of the play right at the beginning. Then the modern myth suggests that the play will act as a myth for the patterns of White America. This mythical quality that resonates throughout the play is further found by the stage properties of Lula. She carries onto the subway these paper books which symbolize the written husbandry of white America this written culture certainly resonates throughout the history of blacks and whites. During the beginning of the Jim Crow laws, the blacks had to take literacy tests to be able to vote, so Lula move in with paper books represents the forced literacy on blacks in the United States. another(prenominal) stage property that Lula has is her sunglasses which she moves around from time to time. This symbolizes her disguise of friends... ...Clay had been the dupe throughout the entire play, absorbing Lulas insults and laughing them off, but with his soliloquy he has become the chronicler. Lulas stereotype of Clay is finally proved wrong at th e end of the play. If Im a midriff class fake white man, let me be. And let me be in the way that I want Safe with my words, and no deaths, clean, hard thoughts, prod me to new conquests. () Here Baraka shows that even though Clay was sucked in by Lulas sexual temptations, he never was never fooled into thinking that she or metaphorically white America would ever accept him. Works CitedBaraka, Amiri. The novel of Negro Literature. Within the Circle. Ed. Angelyn Mitchell. Durham and London Duke University Press, 1994. 165-171.http//www.associatedcontent.com/article/666803/amiri_barakas_use_of_imagery_metaphor_pg4.html?cat=9