Language and Political Change: Africa/America in August Wilson’s Cyclical Plays and
Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones
Abstract:
Contemporary American drama in its different forms discusses social and political concerns
that spark American interest. In addition to the plays of August Wilson, contemporary
American drama also witnessed a revival of a number plays of the early twentieth century.
The plays of Eugene O’Neill in particular resonated with changes related to gender, ethnic
barriers, and the political milieu of American society of late twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries. The present study investigates the plays of August Wilson and Eugene O’Neill and
their symbolic relationship to changes in the contemporary political scene in America.
Moreover, the research focuses on the symbolic use of the African American dialect as a
medium of constructing political change in Eugene O’Neill’s successful Broadway revivals
and August Wilson’s cyclical plays.
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‫اللغة والتغير السياسي‪:‬افريقيا‪-‬امريكا في مسرحيات اوجست ويلسون واإلمبراطور جونز ليوجين اونيل‬
‫الملخص بالعربية ‪:‬‬
‫الدراما االمريكية الحديثة بمختلف أشكالها تناقش مواضيع اجتماعية وسياسية تثير االهتمامات االمريكية‪ .‬باإلضافة‬
‫لمسرحيات أوجست ويلسون تضم الدراما األمريكية احياء لمجموعة من المسرحيات من بداية القرن العشرين‪ .‬ان‬
‫مسرحيات يوجين أنيل على وجه الخصوص تناقش التغيرات المتعلقة بالنوع والفرو قات األثينية والمحيط السياسي‬
‫للمجتمع األمريكي في نهاية القرن العشرين وبداية القرن الواحد والعشرين ‪ .‬ان الدراسة الحالية تبحث في مسرحيات‬
‫أوجست ولسن ويوجين أونيل والعالقة الرمزية مع المتغيرات في المجال السياسي المعاصر في امريكا ‪ .‬كما يركز البحث‬
‫ايضا على االستخدام الرمزي للهجة األفرو‪-‬امريكية كوسيط في بناء التغير السياسي في مسرحات أونيل الناجحة والتي‬
‫أعيد احيائها في برودواي وفي مسرحيات أوجست ويلسون الدورية‪.‬‬
‫‪2‬‬
Language and Political Change: Africa/America in August Wilson’s Cyclical Plays and
Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones
American playwrights often used Africa as a motif to discuss political issues related
to America. Furthermore, the writers of the early twentieth century and contemporary
playwrights both whites and African Americans portrayed Africa as a place of primordial
instincts and as a site where cultural roots especially those of the African American
community can be utilized to integrate people in American mainstream culture. Eugene
O’Neill, for example, was one of the early playwrights who used Africa to comment on
current political events. The use of the African landscape also continued with contemporary
playwrights such as August Wilson. Both playwrights used Africa symbolically as the setting
for their plays. Africa appears as the literal and symbolic setting in Eugene O’Neill’s The
Emperor Jones (1920). In Wilson, Africa is symbolically used in the speeches of the African
American community to express a mixed feeling of belonging and distinction.
Eugene O’Neill is an innovative and revolutionary figure in modern American
drama. His plays categorized under realism were endowed with techniques that focused on
the symbolic use of language which is characteristic of major twentieth century playwrights
such as Ibsen, Chekhov, and Strindberg. O’Neill notably used the vernacular as a means to
involve marginalized groups and individuals in current events of mainstream American
society. Eugene O’Neill’s first major hit, The Emperor Jones (1920), was linked to current
political events of the American invasion of Haiti. The play is set in Africa in an attempt to
make its themes both American and universal.
The Emperor Jones (1920) narrates the story of Brutus Jones, a runaway prisoner,
who seeks refuge in a Caribbean island and manages to usurp the title of an emperor from the
helpless natives. The narrative technique relies on the use of the flashback as Brutus attempts
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to flee from the rebellion by escaping to the forest. The play is important because of the
positive critical and financial success that helped launch O’Neill’s career. The mixture of
expressionism and realism marked its distinction. Jones captures the audience’s attention as
the scenes from two to seven are narrated from his viewpoint. The first and last scene,
however, the minor characters introduce and comment on Jones actions. The link between the
introduction and the ending of the play is Smithers, who seems to side with Jones against the
natives which Smithers considers as closer to animals. The recount of the rebellion by the old
woman at the beginning and the conversation with Lem, the leader of the rebels at the end
convinced Smithers that Jones as respectful and worthy of the majestic execution by a
mystical silver bullet.
Jones role is crucial to the audience’s perception of the play as evident from the
success of the play during the premier performed in 1920 and later in its revival in 1924.
Even O’Neill focused on the character on who was going to play the leading role of Brutus
Jones because the play revolves around him. In fact in recent performances, the addition of
other characters on stage seems to inflate the whole play. Millard Rosie comments on a recent
staging of the play which took about seventy minutes. The performance had about forty
extras which seem to be unnecessary because it did not any depth to the play (44).
Other critical opinion stresses the importance of Jones as the leading figure behind
the universal acclamation of the play. A recent attempt to use the common practice at the
time of O’Neill of using white actors to represent black characters shows the avant-garde
thought of the playwright. Aiofe Monks considers the work of the Wooster group in
connection with the racial discrimination and connects their performance with the original
one, which shows O’Neill as a pioneer in his personal insistence that an African actor lead in
the role was essential to the play’s themes (540-564). Actually, the play’s original success
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was due to the acting skills of Paul Robinson who continued to star in other performances
(Paul Robinson).
The critical acclaim that the play received and which the play continued to obtain is
because of its universal appeal. Bigsby hailed The Emperor Jones as the finest and most
original play as the idea of tragedy becomes acceptable to interpreting the events. Other
critics also favoured the interpretation because the domestic problems O’Neill faced were of
magnitude that almost all of his plays have an individual dilemma as the source of trouble
even in a political play as The Emperor Jones (Eugene O’ Neill). Afterall, Jones’s problems
seem to represent a disintegrating private and public world of an everyman (133-144). This
view is also shared by Kerner who believed that O’Neill created a unique American theatre of
realistic family conflicts (1). As Terry Teachout also mentioned that the positive response the
play obtained earlier also facilitated the play’s reception in the twenty-first century and even
to the acceptance of O’Neill’s other plays such as Long Day’s Journey Into the Night by
contemporary theatre goers (75-78). Obviously, the play is avant-garde in its themes and
staging and appealed to a large audience in spite of the fact that the setting is in Africa.
The African landscape and the stereotypical African characters were symbolically
used in The Emperor Jones. The parallels with Heart of Darkness (1902) has been remarked
in critical history as textual evidence points out that O’Neill used Conrad’s witch doctor as a
model for the one used in the play (Corey 156- 157). The role of the witch doctor emphasizes
the role of superstition and the primitive in bringing down Jones. However, the African
background seemed to baffle some African viewers of the play. Kim Euell discussed
O’Neill’s play with a prominent Ugandan playwright and producer and the challenges of
staging it to a contemporary African audience (22-24).
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Nevertheless, the play’s treatment of the African American individual and community
is the important theme which is at the core of any performance. Some contemporary
performances went even further by using a female actress to shed light on problems related to
gender in the African American community (85-6). The realism of the Negro’s life focuses
on the issue of racial discrimination as pointed out by Manuel Carme (67-85). The change
that happens to the major character is not just Jones’s but embodies the problems of a whole
nation. Using trauma as a leading concept Smith considers the imperative of making the play
an embodiment of a national trauma.
The Emperor Jones emphasizes the role of language in constructing impediment
political changes in a developing country. The play displays all the problems of a developing
country, but the focus is on the exploration of the ruler who brought on such a rebellion.
Smithers is able to sympathize with Jones because in comparison to other characters Jones
can speak. The other characters are not able to produce any intelligible sounds. At the time of
the rebellion, other characters start speaking some form of English. The psychological and
cultural changes that the small community underwent were due to a loss of values that kept
them under the rule of Jones which were later changed. The transformation of the natives,
O’Neill shows, admitted a possibility of Jones’s death by a silver bullet which was carefully
planned.
The play shows the psychological disturbances that can affect developing countries
and which is manifest in its changes in dialect. At the time of the rebellion, Jones, the corrupt
leader, turned to the primitive for support and the natives, the general population, started to
speak in a language similar to Jones. Furthermore, Smithers impoliteness is pointed out by
Jones. When Smithers reminds Jones of his beginning as an escaped convict, Jones states:
SMITHERS(imprudently enraged) Gawd blimey, you
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was glad enough for me ter take yer in on it when
you landed here first. You didn’t ’ave no’igh and
mighty airs in them days!
JONES (his hand going to his revolver like a flashmenacingly). Talk polite, white man! Talk polite,
you heah me!I ‘m boss heah now, is fergettin’?
Jones’s insistence that decorum should observed be at the beginning of the play shows a
charismatic character. The ability to manipulate others enabled him to govern the natives.
Jones’s speech mentioned earlier is contrasted with the ending of the play when he is
carried a dead corpse. Lem comments as they carry Jones’s dead body:
LEM. Lead bullet no kill. He got um strong
charm. I cook um money, make um silver bullet,
make um strong charm, too.
Lem’s exaltation at defeating Jones demonstrates the search for power as part of the ancient
view of the power-hungry individual. However, Lem’s response could also be interpreted as a
way of seeking respect that was denied during Jones’s two year dictatorial regime. Therefore,
the natives decision to pursue power as a means of compensating for psychological
deprivations.
In contrast to O’Neill’s viewpoint of considering charisma and Jones’s dialect as the
governing principles behind the dictatorship that survived two years, Wilson’s use of dialect
emphasizes the old fashioned values and principles that require further examination by the
audience to emphasize the collective nature of political thought and how it affects personal
choices.
Wilson’s cyclical plays examine language and particularly dialect as integral to
understanding political events that affected the African American community. The plays
attracted the attention of literary critics because Wilson commented on his work as part of a
personally motivated endeavour to discover black identity. His childhood experiences in the
Pittsburgh ghetto influenced his literary work and the plays focus on individual problems.
The plays which are ten include: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984), Jitney (1982), Fences
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(1985), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1988), The Piano Lesson (1990; Pulitzer Prize), Two
Trains Running (1992), Seven Guitars (1995), King Hedley II (2001), Gem of the Ocean
(2003), and Radio Golf (2005). The purpose of the plays was to help integrate black
individuals into mainstream American society as a solution to some of the social and
political problems that plague the African American community.
The plays were highly condemning some of characters who opted for the personal
choice of refusing to change. In Fences, the principle character, who is a typical lower class
individual, displays ambivalence towards others and insists for a while to indulge in a past
that is heavily coloured by earlier glories in sports. The willingness to overcome current
racial problems was, however, highly commendable. Troy Maxon manages to direct the
audience’s response to his problems as social ones. Therefore, instead of regarding socially
unacceptable practices as marital infidelity as a taboo, Troy emphasizes social solidarity as
the alternative to personal condemnation through his use of a common dialect and voicing
similar social ills as a predicament of not as individuals ones, but as belonging to a
community.
Wilson in the plays in general and in Fences particularly focuses on the individual as
part of a social group. The focal point is on the dialect of the lower classes, as most African
Americans belong to the disadvantaged group. Therefore, speeches become a way of
breaking the barriers and an expression of a desire to be a saviour and responsible for an
awakening in the frigidity of incarnation. Even though Troy’s wife wants her husband builds
a fence, he insistently considers the act as one of entrapment. Moreover, Troy tries to keep
openness towards other members of his family and community. Troy believes that building
fences has always been the way of African Americans of avoiding political activity that
leaves them few job opportunities. He comes to the realization that within the political
stratum the people who are influential are those effective participants. Moreover, Troy
realizes that self-interest is a great motivation for seeking justice for a larger group.
The other plays in the cycle also assert the possibility of reformation of individuals
and society and are set at a precise historical period in American history. In Gem of the
Ocean , which is a fundamental play in the cycle, there is an emphasis on the process of self
8
discovery and a reconstruction of an identity that touches the lives of all the characters. The
play’s emphatic concern is the connection with the past that Aunt Ester Tyler uses to create a
bond with the present (Shannon 26-39). The turbulent times of 1904 also witnessed vast
modernization and industrialization and the introduction of modern technologies. In terms of
reconstruction, important Northern cities were provided with advances in the transportation
system and the New York subway was opened to the public. Internationally, America became
a power to be reckoned with because it managed to purchase Alaska from Russia and have
military bases in several Asian countries. However, the African American community were
left to question issues related to their lives in terms of being free and yet handicapped in
understanding the meaning of emancipation. The black immigration movement to northern
cities as well establish the background to the play, with pavements as replacing the ancestral
African jungle. The main character, Citizen Barlow, comes to the woman that represents a
metaphor for the witch doctor, who advises the community and directs its actions.
The cycle which is often discussed collectively creates a uniformed picture of
African American life and the relationship with the American political environment. The
social and political ramifications in the plays are difficult to overlook. However, critical
opinion differs as Patricia Gantt considers the Pittsburgh cycle along with an overview of
Wilson’s life as a an artistic attempt to comment on other concerns than a particularized study
of African American life. In fact Gantt argues that Wilson draws on black culture to create
art. Nevertheless, the connection with the past and especially the African inheritance ensure
the characters of the confidence in one’s capacity to be effectual in taking a more positive
direction seems to real to be overlooked. The emphasis comes from an examination of the
past and the knowledge of the unsatisfactory outcomes of being non involved or excluded. It
also comes from the belief that the obstacles to overcome are few and largely influenced by
internal conflicts both within the individual and the community. In some particular cases in
the plays, the link between the socioeconomic factors explains political activity. The major
characters see that those members of the political system who have power seek to gain
influence over important policies by being more politically involved and therefore, other
who are less involved become under a situation where there is an uneven distribution of
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power.
In conclusion, the two playwrights use language to relate individual struggle to
national crises. The use of dialect serves to elucidate the notion of the level of participation in
the political activity of their time. In short, for Jones in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones
and the cyclical plays of August Wilson, the opportunity cost of social and political
involvement in the exposition seem to be too high and of little benefit. They share the
unwillingness to undergo the stability of concrete benefits or gratifications that are derived
from choosing to be non participants. In fact, the general tendency prevails of a sense of
uncertainty, remoteness, and abstractness in political participation. The major characters’
views on stage represent most common standpoints. However, their nonchalant behaviour
undergoes a transition in which there is a transformation through a self realization of the
knowledge of the past and a study of their current situation. The characters come to realize
that there are alternatives and consequently a possibility of change. The belief in change
comes from a transformation in the dialect as the language comes to resemble those in power
and the conviction that the grass maybe greener on the other side.
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