Allegory and Iconography in African American Drama of the Sixties: Imamu Amiri Baraka's "Dutchman" and Alice Childress's

"Wine in the Wilderness" Author(s): Jochen Achilles Source: Amerikastudien / American Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2, Das amerikanische Drama der sechziger Jahre (2000), pp. 219-238 Published by: Universittsverlag WINTER Gmbh Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41157564 . Accessed: 06/12/2013 10:17
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in African American Drama oftheSixties: and Iconography Allegory Winein the ImamuAmiriBaraka'sDutchmanand Alice Childress's Wilderness
Achilles Jochen

ABSTRACT
and David Lodge,many thatwas developedby RomanJakobson If one appliesa terminology of conflicting on themtonymie can be said to be based either contiguity playson racialconflict elements. In the sixties, JamesBaldcondensation of heterogeneous forcesor the metaphoric of the black and win'sBlues forMister Charlie(1964) is based on the contiguous juxtaposition whileAdrienneKennedy's whitespheresand thuson a binary of a Negro Funnyhouse pattern, educationand reprimiand Victorianism, conflates university Africanity (1964) metaphorically structures. and thusforegrounds tivization PlaysbyAmiriBaraka and Alice Childress polyvalent drama by using them in innovative of African-American transcend these pervasivepatterns African-American play (1964), oftenseen as the paradigmatic ways.AmiriBaraka's Dutchman in unprecedented innovation bothstructures marksan aesthetic of the sixties, by amalgamating and discrepancies canceleach otherout in a mythiIn Dutchman, interethnic similarities tension. structures on whichresults from a superimposition of metaphorical of hopelessness, cal allegory or iconographie mode of Alice Childress's dramais yetanother ones.The ekphrastic mtonymie takesin AfricanAmerican dramaof thesixties. Icons suchas phoaesthetic innovation direction function as objectscontiguously relatedto other and paintings masks, metonymically tographs, in different of as relatedelements metaphorically paradigms objectson stage.Theyalso function methodto structure Winein the Wilderness Alice Childressuses the iconographie blackness. alienation and authentication pictorially by an elaboratepainting (1969),a playwhich negotiates Childress's has becomea majoraesthetic of blackwomanhood. Meanwhile, strategy iconography of contested identities in African-American drama.In theeighties forthedramatic presentation in AugustWilson'splays.As well as Baraka, it is taken up again,for instance, and nineties, musttherefore be seen as a pioneering of the sixtieswithregardto bothculChildress figure in myth and allegory, Baraka's episodicDutchand aesthetics. turalpolitics By itsembeddedness whose unique complexity seems to tie it man acquiresa semantic overdetermination, however, of themid-sixties mostexclusively. to theturbulent moment I I would like to begin by citing two aesthetic assessments of black theatre,which and describe a status quo of were writtenin the late forties and fifties, respectively, black art in white America which was to be challenged in the sixties. In his poem "Note on Commercial Theater" (1949), Langston Hughes describes the situation of black drama as one of outer-directednessby white culture which has drained black music and theater of its substance: You've takenmybluesand goneYou sing'em on Broadway And yousing'em in Hollywood Bowl, And youmixed'em up with symphonies

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Achilles Jochen 'em Andyoufixed likeme. don't sound So they andgone. blues my Yep, youdonetaken andgone. You alsotook my spirituals Jones andCarmen YouputmeinMacbeth Mikados ofSwing Andall kinds me about butwhat's Andineverything Butsomeday somebody'U about Stand me, upandtalk me about Andwrite BlackandbeautifulAndsing about me, me! about Andputonplays be memyself! it'll I reckon it'll be me.(Hughes Yes, 1724)

in Mind (1955) takesas itsthemethewhitecommerAlice Childress's play Trouble cial productionof a melodrama about slavery in the South called "Chaos in of "Chaos in Belleville'"sracist Belleville."Challengedby a black actress'scriticism tellsher: director white the and angrily sentimentality artificiality, less atall,much show ona colored inputting ofusinterested few damned there's Getwise, I can Do youthink world! it'sa hard outhere, It'srough to sayanything. onethat's going be can't that ofthings There arebillions about thetruth outbytelling neck stick you? my thoua hundred I canraise do youthink thehell Where billions! said... do youfollow me, it'sa andwaves truth? theunvarnished totell sanddollars it)So,maybe script upthe (Picks bitter Here's time! for a damned across come liesyou'll lie ... butit'soneofthefinest long tosee youtheway is notready ... TheAmerican off truth livin' since public truth, you're want tobelieve don't two... they believe don't one... they tobe seenbecause, it, youwant wise andaim Now it? ... Get are convinced ... they're it... andthree up you they superior be help'emweepbuckets, make let'empity American inthat for thesoft heart, you, spot ineasing lenda hand for so damned make 'emfeel up thepresthey'll less, sorry youthat Trouble coast. ... coast, ride You've sure. 537) (Childress, baby, gota free of Troublein Mind bothconcretizes structure The metadramatic play-within-the-play trialrunof the a theatrical and of thefirst and confirms provides poem part Hughes's whiteimages. itsdistorted underneath burialof blackselfhood and can be seen as of thesixties The BlackArtsMovement grewout ofsuchpressures misto shakeoff ofthesecondpartofHughes's therealization alienating poem:theeffort individuAmerican Africanand to developbothan independent ofblackness conceptions as follows: this Neal describes The writer andnationhood. project political Larry ality alienates that oftheartist to anyconcept is radically Movement TheBlackArts opposed oftheBlackPower sister andspiritual BlackArtis theaesthetic hiscommunity. from him of to theneedsandaspirations an artthat it envisions As such, directly speaks concept. to relate both andtheBlackPower BlackAmerica The BlackArts broadly concept arenaBothconcepts andnationhood. for self-determination desire theAfro-American's Jr. tionalistic, 1797) (qtd.Baker, to his essay collectionThe Black Aesthetic In the introduction (1971), the theoretialso AddisonGayle,Jr., cal bible of theBlack ArtsMovement, sepaarguesforethnic

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whichconratism distinction betweenblack people and Americans, by a provocative or 'African Americans'as paradoxical:"The siderstermssuch as 'Afro-Americans' in theAmerican who createswithout a noteof angeris blackartist society interjecting as an American" to Douglas not as a black but Similar man, (Gayle 1870). creating in the for Irish liberation from British rule the Irish nationalist who, struggle Hyde, of thelastcentury, entitled hismostinfluential lecture "The Necessity aroundtheturn of black Ireland"(1892), Gayle demands"the de-Americanization forDe-Anglicising heart of the Black As an that "lies at the Aesthetic" (Gayle 1875). adequate people" to be overcome, of thementality Gayle quotes themostfamouspassage from analysis theschizoidmultiW.E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk (1903),whichdescribes as double consciousness in terms reminiscent of of the black soul an unhappy plicity formulations of and Marxian self-estrangement: Hegelian sensation this double this sense ofalways at oneself It is a peculiar consciousness, looking theeyes ofothers, themeasuring ofone'ssoulbythetapeofa world that on looks through inamused andpity. Oneever feels histwonessanAmerican, a Negro, two souls, contempt inonedark twothoughts, twounreconciled twowarring ideals whose strivings; body, dogitfrom alonekeeps torn asunder seeDu Bois615). 1875; being (Gayle gedstrength Black playwrights of thesixties take up thisdiagnosis of a splitAfrican-American selfto inner-direction hood and the demandfora return thatresults from it.Theytryto dramatize the processof emancipation fromwhitemodes of thought, the path from In his famousessay "The Revolutionary alienationto authenticity. Theatre"(1969), whichcan be read as a responseto LangstonHughes's poem "Note on Commercial AmiriBaraka demandsbotha relentless of theblackmentality and Theater," analysis its heroictransformation: "The Revolutionary TheatremustEXPOSE! Show up the insidesof thesehumans, look intoblack skulls"("Revolutionary Theatre"1899). The aim of such introspection is an emancipation fromEuropean role models and the of an authentic "The Revolutionary Theatre,whichis now emergence self-identity: with will soon to be with new kinds of heroes- notthe victims, peopled begin peopled weak Hamlets debatingwhether or not theyare ready to die for what's on their but men and women(and minds)digging out from undera thousandyearsof minds, dalliance"(1902). Black drama of the sixtiesoscillatesac'highart' and weak-faced betweenthe depictionof amalgamated whiteand black modes of thought cordingly and feeling and theattempt to seek clear-cut linesof demarcation. The fusion of black and whiteidentities on the one hand,which, in the sixties, is emphatically understood as a nightmare of oppression and self-denial, on and,on the otherhand,theinsistence the authentication of black selfhood, necessitate different forms of aesthetic expresdramatic structures. sion,different I have arguedelsewhere thatEugene O'Neill's Emperor Jones(1920) and All Gos ChillunGot Wings(1924) can be consideredas models of these representational modes.WhileAll God's ChillunGot Wings the whiteand the black separatesrigidly which it and controls its at interracial spheres depicts thereby protagonists' attempts reconciliation and love,Emperor Jonesis based on the retrieval of a historical parawhich unitesthecolonizerand thecolonized.This deterdigmof oppression tragically minestheplays'dramatic All Gos Chillun follows a realisform, respectively. largely tic topographical and chronological whereasEmperor Jonesis based on the pattern,

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and collective tracesof the undreamlike of actual and historical, individual merging conscious. a that was Roman and David Jakobson Applying terminology developedby the structure of All God's Chillun can be said to be based on the Lodge, mtonymie of conflicting forcesand thatof Emperor Joneson the metaphoric condencontiguity sationof heterogeneous elements.1 of James In thesixties, thecoexistence of thesemodesis also noticeable. The setting All God's Chillunin the rigidity Baldwin'sBlues for MisterCharlie(1964) resembles of the contiguous of the black and the whitesphere.The play exposes juxtaposition a whitemurderer and his black the psychological analogies of its main charactersand a whiteloverof blackness-within the strict an Uncle Tom figure victim, segregaThe inbuilt tion of Blacktownand Whitetown. politicalbipolarity providesa formal action.In Blues for MisterCharlie, coherencewhichis undermined by the dramatic the overarching spatial separationof the black and whitespheresdominatesthe asConversely, pects of interracial convergencewhich it both controlsand subverts. the metaphoric conAdrienneKennedy'sFunnyhouse of a Negro (1964) intensifies the bipolarorganizadensation of Emperor Jones. Funnyhouse of a Negrodismantles and replacesit by condensedand blurred tionof race relations imagesof tragicomic elements is of fusion. The metaphoric interracial incongruous equivalence apparently and the theatricality of the funnyhouse. of fantasy based on the virtuality Funnyhouse whichexof racialself-definitions of a Negroallowsforan associative rearrangement and leads to new dramatic forms traditional patterns. polyvalent plodes African-American seen as theparadigmatic AmiriBaraka's Dutchman (1964),often of of the most of the sixties and one expressions the Black Arts prominent play in unpreceboth structures aesthetic innovation marks an Movement, by conflating cancel each similarities and discrepancies interethnic dented tension.In Dutchman, from a superimposition whichresults of hopelessness, otherout in a mythical allegory revoluones. Dutchmanis not aesthetically on mtonymie structures of metaphorical rather in the modes but with traditional dramatic total break in sense of a the tionary on modes are being used and superimposed radicalways in whichthese traditional each other. or iconographie the ekphrastic This is also trueof yetanotherdramatic technique, in some playsof the sixtiesand highlights mode,whichbecomesprominent problems

1 In "Two Roman Jakobson Aspectsof Language and Two Typesof Aphasie Disturbances," and textsbased and realistic, as mtonymie or displacement textsbased on contiguity describes MetonIn The Modes of ModernWriting: as symbolic. or condensation on similarity Metaphor, of modernand theTypology (1977),David Lodge developsa theory of Modem Literature ymy, to and morespecifically ethnic ismfrom thisdistinction. diversity, Appliedto dramadealingwith seemsto be applicableto recent American AfricanDrama,thisdistinction playssuchas August and based on interBlack Bottom(1984) or Seven Guitars(1995), largely Wilson'sMa Rainey's and Suzan-LoriParks's The Death of the Last Black and contiguity, confrontation intraracial events. See my of historical Man in theWholeEntireWorld(1989), based on the condensation of theModernand thePostmodern: Eugene O'Neill's Representations essay"The Synchronicity AmericanDrama of AugustWilsonand Suzan-LoriParks,"preof Blacknessand the African and Decorationin a Postmodern on "Representation sentedat a conference Age" in Wrzburg, in theconference 1999,and to be published proceedings. January

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In O'Neill's All God's Chillun, a coloredphotograph of JimHarris's of ethnic identity. in the Europeanizeduniform of his lodge and a Congo maskfunction as iconic father of the between deference to white culture and African opposition representations icons function as rootedness Such (O'Neill 105). metonymically objectscontiguously also function and paintings relatedto otherobjectson the stage.Photographs, masks, in of blackness. Alice as related elements different metaphorically paradigms methodin the fifties and sixtiesto structure two imChildress uses the iconographie in Mind (1955) and Winein theWilderness in Trouble (1969). In Trouble portant plays, Mind (1955), thisiconographie is based on the metadramatic device of the approach theplay.2 Winein theWilderness alienation and authenti(1969) negotiates playwithin cationpictorially and elaboratepainting of black womanhood. Both by an ambitious in Mind and Winein theWilderness seem to have been of influence formore Trouble I shall analyzemorecloselythe use of political recentblack drama.In the following, in Africanand iconography Americandramaof the sixties of allegory by a discussion ImamuAmiriBaraka's Dutchman Winein theWilderness (1964) and Alice Childress's the respective dramatic form is botha function and a determi(1969). In theseplays, nantof AfricanAmericanidentity, takingshape betweenthe poles of authentication In a further and abnegation. of thesedramatic thepreciserelationship modes, analysis and Childress's of Baraka's allegorical to the mtonymie and iconographie techniques modesof dramatic could be discussed. metaphoric presentation II AmiriBaraka's playDutchman withBaraka's fameas (1964),whichis synonymous in the sixties(see Sollors, a protest writer AmiriBaraka 117) and has been called "a embodiment of the dramatist's new conceptionof AfricanAmerican programmatic difference" is for (Olaniyan78), manyperhapsthe mostmemorable stage expression of the Black Aesthetic. At first based on glance,Dutchmanseems to be structurally the mtonymie that also marks Blues Mister Charlie. Dutchman acts juxtaposition for out the relationship betweenClay,a shy, black and "a intellectual, Lula, tall, young beautiful womanwithlong red hairhanging down her slender, back, straight wearing in somebody'sgood taste" (Baraka, Dutchman1886). Theircasual onlyloud lipstick in a subwaycar renders their abstract and situational. What acquaintance relationship thismeeting is the factthatit is dominated complicates by the exchangeof socially conditioned himself as stereotypes. Eventually, Clay admitsthatin college he stylized a black Baudelaire, thusembracing botha European identity and aesthetic. Lula, rep2 Trouble in Mind discussesthetensions between authentic and racist of blackness concepts by theBroadway of a piece called "Chaos in Belleville," which thematizing production sentimentally deforms the conditions of Southern As one critic '"Chaos in Belleville'is a disslavery. suggests: torted mirror notonlyof actualevents butof thewaythoseevents have been interpreted forthe themselves. The metatheatrical structure of Troublethus allows stage by AfricanAmericans Childress to write a critique of the history of theAmerican whereplaysby (usuallymale) stage, Whitewriters to showtheBlack experience have been embraced whiledramasbyAfpurporting ricanAmerican writers are ignored" 127;Costello718-21). (Barlow473;see also Hay 119,122-24,

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the self-assured and provocative new womanof the sixties, behavesaccordresenting she has him in the that She subwaycar,by ingly. challenges Clay by admitting pursued sex talk ("What are you preparedfor?"),by insult("You look like death eatinga soda cracker"), and by imitating a "clinging vine" (1887,1889).Her sexual stimulation in grabbing near his crotch and posingthe question- by thena culminates Clay's leg about" (1890), thereby the sexual rhetorical one: "What are you thinking producing him with. has rehearse the arousal in himwhichshe afterwards Lula Clay reproaches her to the partyshe is going linesby whichshe wisheshimto ask her to accompany a stereotype, thatof thecoy to,in orderto be able to givean answerthatagain fulfills butflattered and basically girl: willing don't with metonight?' LULA: Nowyousayto me, 'Lula,Lula,why yougo to this party be your lines. It'syour andletthose turn, Huh? with metonight, CLAY:Lula,why don't party yougo tothis andnohuh's. twice before name LULA: Saymy youask, don't with metonight? CLAY:Lula,Lula, yougo tothis party why know me? buthowcan youask me to go when LULA: I'd liketo go,Clay, youbarely (1890) of social as on the level of the reproduction All thisgesturing and posingfunctions It is not quite truethatagainst"Lula's howell as racialauto-and heterostereotypes. and his insistence insists on specificity, discourse, regularly Clay constantly mogenizing bedeceleratesLula's pace" (Olaniyan79). Clay in factplaysalong forquite a while, outbreak ends his banterwithLula. forehis famous in the cracking consists The conflict of Dutchman up and finalviolentexplosionof Dutchman it generates. and the social boundariesand certainties racial stereotyping of the underlying and the revelation of behavioralpatterns leads to a deconstruction exThe stereotyped emotions thatshape both the genderand race conflicts. atavistic between undercut Lula's alternation and are between Lula seemingly by Clay changes Her ability to know even the most and utterunreliability. clairvoyance supernatural desireforhissister suchas his incestuous intimate detailsof Clay's existence, (Baraka, thatshe lies so muchin orderto control withthe remark Dutchman1888),alternates Lula also castsdoubton the way in which the world(1887). In schizophrenic fashion, her predictions with, about,and seemingfamiliarity Clay come about. "I told you I about you," she says and then contradictorily don't know anything adds, "you're a whenshe tellsClay about herself well-known type"(1889). Lula is equallymysterious and actresshe believesher to be, but: "I'm nothing, thatshe is not the well-known the with both of this The ever it" don't you ascriptoying spuriousness forget (1891). reachesits climaxat the end of the play's first of identities tion and the questioning histheir to be freefrom thattheybothpretend scene,whenLula suggests respective see cannot the "And we'll contexts: and torical, social, people pretend biographical of And I am free of own are free And that the citizens. That is, history. your you you. beauties both we are We'll along through smashing anonymous pretend my history. of this of the play provesthe illusoriness the city'sentrails" (1892). The remainder of context. repression suggested identiboth adopted and ascribed,insincereand inauthentic The free-floating, ties-reaching fromLula's associationwithJulietand Snow White's envious stepYonkers" "Jewish withAllan Ginsberg-like mother to Clay's identification poets from

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on racialhatred. slaves(1894-95)- becomemoreand morefocused and with plantation his that he is the of Lula provokes Claybysuggesting borrowing identity oppressors: heatfor? Andwhy 're youwearing a What've jacketandtieon in all this yougotthat or start revolutions overthe andtielikethat? Did your witches jacket peopleeverburn narrow-shoulder clothes comefrom a tradition to feel oftea?Boy, those youought price A three-button suit. What do youhavetowear a three-button suit and right oppressed by. hedidn't tie?Yourgrandfather wasa slave, (1891) gotoHarvard. stripe does not make Lula less ambivalent. She wantsto This heightened aggressiveness she denies his blackness rub bellieswithClay to dance withhim.At the same time, whiteman. You would-beChristian. You ain't and describeshim as a "[l]iver-lipped white man" When Lula to break out no nigger, a (1896). urgesClay you'rejust dirty and again accuses him of being afraidof whitepeople and of being an Uncle Tom and highly behaviorushersin the final (1896-97),thisboth aggressive contradictory of genuinehatred. breakthrough is reachedwhenClay suddenly The climaxof thisdevelopment hitsLula hardand confessesthathe could murder her (1897). He also turnsto the other,presumably middle-class of the subwaycar and threatens themwithmurder. In white, passengers a sudden and violentoutburst, he insultsLula and insistson his,the black man's, white mask:"Let me be who I feellike being.Uncle Tom.Thomas.Whoever. It's none of yourbusiness. You don'tknowanything exceptwhat'sthereforyou to see. An act. the pumping Lies. Device. Not the pure heart, black heart.You don'tever knowthat. And I sithere,in thisbuttoned-up to keep myself from all yourthroats. I suit, cutting mean wantonly" Uncle Tom-whiteness reveals itself the as (1897). Clay's camouflage of hispent-up whiteculture. it is precisely hisadaptaaggression against Paradoxically, tion to whiteness whichemergesas an indicator of his hatredof whitecivilization. of black artwhichdescribesit as sublimated Clay developsa theory carnage.He arown that his and the music of black musicians is forthe gues poetry compensation kill. If to black artists did not would murder white urge produceart,they people. Or, iftheseblackartists murdered whitepeople,theywouldnotneed their art: conversely, And they sitthere aboutthetortured of Charlie Parker. Birdwould've talking genius nota note ofmusic ifhejustwalked Street andkilled the played uptoEastSixty-seventh first tenwhite would-be peoplehe saw.Nota note!AndI'm thegreat poet.Yes.That's Poet. Somekind ofbastard literature ... all itneeds is a simple knife thrust. Just let right! me bleedyou, and one poemvanished. A wholepeopleof neurotics, youloudwhore, to keepfrom thatwouldcuretheneurosis struggling beingsane.And theonlything would be your murder. as that. I mean ifI murdered then other white Simple you, people wouldbegin to understand me.You understand? No. I guessnot.If BessieSmith had killed somewhite haveneeded that music. She couldhavetalked peopleshe wouldn't andplain about theworld. No metaphors. No grunts. No wiggles inthedark very straight ofhersoul.Just twoandtwoarefour. Power. Likethat. All of straight Money. Luxury. them. their backson sanity. When all it needsis that act. Crazy niggers turning simple Murder. Just murder! Would make us all sane Don'tmake themistake, some through of Christian of talking too much abouttheadvantages of irresponsible surge charity, Western or thegreat intellectual of thewhite or maybe rationalism, man, legacy they'll to listen. Andthen, oneday, find do understand begin maybe you'll they actually exactly what all these All these bluespeople. Andon that about, youaretalking fantasy people. as sureas shit, when believe them into as halfday, fold, youreally youcan'accept' your white trusties lateofthesubject With no more thevery old ones, blues, peoples. except andnota watermelon insight, thegreat heart will havetriumphed, andall of missionary

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Achilles Jochen Western with cleanhard useful ex-coons will be stand-up those lives, sober, men, eyesfor rational murder andthey'll murder They'll youandhavevery explayou. piousandsane, cutyour anddrag much likeyour own. nations. throats, yououtto theedge They'll Very from insanitary isolation. canfall ofyour cities so theflesh bones, (1898) away your

of Clay's repressedracial angeris a mirror Lula's reactionto the return image of of theirrelentless hatredhe just voiced.In thismutuality the murderous aggressiveof the ideologyof interracial ness,Clay and Lula reveal the dark underside recogniAfterhavingsuddenly stabbedClay to death,Lula comtion and universal equality. mands the other, obviouslywhite, passengersto throwClay's body out of the train black man entersthe car,Lula and to leave at the nextstop.When another twentyish whiteEve who is out to poison,corbeginsall over again her game of the tempting cycle remainsthe play's last rupt,and kill black manhood (1899). This murderous on interracial relations statement (Sollors121-22). black revolutionthattheviolent of thisimpassesuggests The aporetichopelessness efof The Slave (1964), Baraka's nextdramatic aryWalkerVessels- the protagonist (Olaniyan 80). In The Slave, the fort-may be consideredas "Clay's resurrection" Bohemiangarbforcomhis assimilationist would-beblack Baudelairehas exchanged in his furious what Walkerhas done bat fatigues. monologue:he Clay onlysuggests and to channels has shed the aestheticism which,according Clay,only camouflages thewhite and has replacedit by thereleaseof sheerforce, black aggressiveness killing But Walker's tried to emulate. whom he Bradford liberalintellectual formerly Easley, a sosublimation does not represent violenceforartistic of revolutionary substitution the white tied to Walker Not is either. lutionof interracial inextricably only problems and as he triesto as Easley's wifeGrace is his own ex-wife worldhe wantsto destroy, crehe himself he has withGrace out of the turmoil children rescuethe mixed-race of his own revolutionary ates. In a monologuewhichamountsto a deconstruction and shortcomrevealsthe innercontradictions WalkerVesselsalso mercilessly stance, of Black Nationalist philosophy: ings I will ever have creative for all times I havekilled ofthefact that ... inspite impulse any killed I ambeing ... despite thefact that ofmymurderous philosophies bythedepravity killer eveninmy orwarmth, inmy headeachdayandbynowhaveno soulorheart long but I loveortrust, that intheuniverse I haveno other that thefact thing despite fingers, hearme, Olympus, therespite, ... despite or in spite, mydears, mydears, myself of all the dead chief of O of God Damballah, thieves, religions pseudo-nigger Mercury, thereafter de wah... harhar... inspite, toopenbigrestaurants despite, patriots hoping where wehavetaken, andthesmall cities inthelarge sistance towns, pilesof yes, dragged that thefact in Rheingold them for bedsandshot outoftheir darkies ads, despite being bookintheir readany whohavenever motherfuckers areignorant officers allofmy lives, with or anything, or boxing, rather I would that thefact literature, argue politics, despite noises ofthedrunken andin spite all these with dearEasley, things you. . . despite you, AndI willtake much. those of ... I want ... in spite I'm making, very very, girls, despite TheSlave66-67) with me.(Baraka, them outofhere is now the old man at reads:"He [Walker] The Slave's penultimate stage direction Walkeris deof theplay'sprologue, of theplay" (88). At the beginning the beginning vest"(43), who and an old ragged with white scribed as "an old fieldslave,balding, hair, fromslave to black in the course of thisprologueundergoesa cyclicaldevelopment more'fieldhand' soundless articulate, and back to "growing anxiously revolutionary

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seemingmore ing" (45)- a cyclethatthe play on the whole repeats.Thus,although nationalistic than Dutchman at first The Slave is as cyclical radically glance, hopelessly "The Slave arguesthe case forBlack militancy, but ultimately deas its predecessor: realization as an absurd, and situation" nouncesits fictive circular, enslaving (Sollors resurrection of 138). In a poem entitled"Clay," Baraka later envisionsa different when he satirizesthe moderatesuccessesof black politics. Dutchman'sprotagonist, in theaffirmation successesconsist of a blackbourgeoiThese relatively unspectacular of thecontroversial radicalism sie.Theyhave toneddown,butperhapsalso redeemed, " 'Killed/ a white in which itself both Dutchman and The Slave: thesixties, by expresses mis/in 1964, /he rose/to be thefirst /from woman/on a subway negrocongressman /thatbeingdead /is thepre /requisite souri. /we'renotsaying /forthishonor/butit certainly helpedmakehim/whathe is /today'"(qtd.in Sollors133). Baraka's Dutchmanseems to remainlargelyon the level of the meStructurally, of blackand white who are tonymic juxtaposition positions, represented byindividuals Dutchman as social typesbut also displayhighly behavior. idiosyncratic recognizable sharesthismtonymie of racial divisiveness, as well as the attempts groundstructure to transcend it erotically in the direction of interracial love and understanding, with Baldwin'sBlues for MisterCharlie,for instance. What complicates of the structure Dutchman is the inversion of racial stereotypes acted out by Lula and Clay.Clay at first appearsas a 'whitenegro'in thesense thathe seemsto embracewhiterole modand intellectual els. His acceptanceof whitecultural standards leads to the repression of emotions and instincts whose expression is considered as characteristic of his race. Lula seems to live out the sensuality associatedwithAfriConversely, stereotypically In the processof the play,thisopposition can Americans. dissolvesintouniversal hatredand aggression. This does not fully the that however, representativeness explain, has been ascribedto thisstagedsubwayepisode by audiencesand critics alike,who could not but acknowledge theemotional and of Baraka's suggestiveness impact play. The structural parallels between Blues for MisterCharlie and Dutchmanobscure rather thanclarify the reasonswhythe latter, and not the first-mentioned, play has been considered as the beginning of the Black Revolutionary Theatre(Grabes 185). Dutchman's of "the mythologies thatfuelAmericanperceptions about interrogation race and gender"(NAAAL 1878) is a major reason forthe play's epochal impact.3 This historical and cultural as depth,the subway'sbeing "heaped in modernmyth," thefirst reads (Baraka,Dutchman1885),the associations of Lula, who stagedirection and with"Americaitself... the keeps feeding apples to Clay,withEve, Lulu, Lilith, of America,"as Baraka later announced(NAAAL 1879),of Clay withAdam, spirit Uncle Tom,and BiggerThomas(Sollors 129),and of thesubwaytrain withthe Christ,
3 The Norton American Literature summarizes as follows whatis origiAnthology of African Carl Brucker's "CriticCarl Brucker thatthe play'sunderground nallycritic argument: suggests connotes and 'entombment' and thatit 'could be emblematic 'incarceration,' 'damnation,' setting of thesubconscious.' He goes on to suggest thattheplay'ssetting and title'remind the audience of the packed holds of Dutch slave traders, whichbrought the first African to Jamestown; the historic Railroad,whichhelpedslaves escape the South;and the legendary Underground Flying the cursedphantom sails the seas.' Brucker also claimsthat'the Dutchman, ship thatendlessly biblical to thestory of Adam and Eve are obvious'"(NAAAL 1878;see Grabes 193). parallels

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Africans to Americato be whichbrought Dutchmanand Dutch slave traders, Flying and adds to itssignifithe with semantic certainly exploited, charges play polyvalence itsmtonymie structure. cance.It also transforms ground In a 1976 essay,HerbertGrabes discussesin particular the aesthetic procedures by His reflections take theirdeparture whichthe play's politicalmessage is generated. in of individuals C. Rice,whichdescribes the conflict from an earlierarticleby Julian the play as synonymous withone of the centraltensionsof Americansocietyin the sixties: "Lula, Clay,and the silentriderswho get on the trainin scene ii comprisea racistsocietyinevitably subwaytowardthe murderof speedingon a metaphorical symbolizing genocide"(Rice 42; qtd. in Grabes 187). Grabes defines Clay,a murder of allegory as a modernform thegeneralby way of the specific thismode of grasping the Lula "WhiteAmerica," Black America," in whichClay represents "Assimilationist and the subwayitself of the second scene "The SilentMajority," subwaypassengers ins"The Course of History" (Grabes 196). He concludes". . . da wires in Dutchman gesamtmit einer 'extendedmetaphor'(und damiteiner modernenForm der Allenach dem Geschehenszumeist gorie)zu tunhaben,bei der die Details des konkreten die Ebene einer konsistenten fr ihrer Kriterium Argumentation Aussagefhigkeit of the play has become representative sind" (Grabes 197). Aesthetically, ausgewhlt mission and to black political personalexperience by playwrights synthesize attempts and allegory (see Grabes 198). metaphor, bymeansof myth, the "is a playfrom Werner SollorsarguesthatDutchman Not unlikeHerbert Grabes, litwith social of the absurdwhicheffectively theater themes, private myths integrates who Both and ethnocentrism" surrealism and Lula, Clay (Sollors 117). political erary and partly individuals ritual" (118), are partly engagein whatSollorscalls an "absurdist sectionof The central address into whose (120). public dialoguedevelops private types as Drama of the Self" bears the title"Dutchman of Dutchman Sollors'sinterpretation of Grabes's analysisof the allegoricalstructure and specifiesas well as transcends fashion. and autobiographical, bothpsychological in a somewhat Dutchman precarious, bothClay and Lula as "Baraka-projections" Sollorsconsiders (123)- a thesiswhichis in the case of Clay,but quite daringin the case of Lula, a flamboyant not surprising thatboth Clay and Lula whitewomanwho hates blacks.Sollorstriesto demonstrate whichhas divideditconsciousness different aspectsof an artistic temporal "represent blackintellectual forces" selfintoopposing incorpo(123). WhileClay as a middle-class Baraka's SollorsarguesthatLula represents ratesBaraka's rejectedNew Jersey roots, "Lula is perhapseverything ofthisbackground: ownlaterdeconstruction Clay does not that of has to Sollors become" himself to concede, course, Clay himself (124). permit in his famous becomes"Baraka's morecontemporary long speech (126) mouthpiece" out as a Black Nationalist, theend of theplay.Sollorsinterprets towards Clay'scoming is out of character [197]),not onlyas a signaledby thisspeech (whichGrabes thinks which "transforms butalso as an aesthetic blackness of authentic manifestation gesture racial'realism'": intoAmerican ... an exampleofEuropeansurrealism
as a Black Baudeof himself scene of Dutchman, In the central Clay,who once thought a racialaddressin thetraand hisaddressis notmerely has becomea Black Breton; laire, to AndrBreton's'Second Maniaffinities ditionof FrantzFanon,but also showsstrong insubtenetof 'totalrevolt, claimsa surrealist festoof Surrealism' complete (1930) which violence.' save from to rule'and 'expectsnothing of sabotageaccording (127) ordination,

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He and blackemancipation. European aesthetic avant-gardism Clay thusamalgamates surrealism" Black nationalism and considered as be "'surrealizing' 'ethnicizing' may from the omniscient Lula "has been transformed, [because she has (127). Conversely, whom has never met of she an uncanny before]Bohemianinto knowledge Clay's life, in whiteWesternsociety"(128). that is murderous of everything an incorporation on the roles of both Sollors insists forall these masks and inversions, Nevertheless, "the black partof the selvesof the same authorial characters as fragmented identity: thusrevealsthe Sollors's selfis beingkilledby thewhitemirror analysis image"(128). of a common aesthetical as well as paradigm inscription psychological metaphorical Not only of Clay and Lula, black and whitesociety. within the mtonymie antagonism inversion of ethnic It is also suban is thisantagonism by stereotypes. complicated as whichrevealsBaraka's own development vertedby a metaphoric deep structure, Both this the psycho-biographical converge. spherein whichblacknessand whiteness of interracial amidstethnicconflict and the play's manifold convergence inscription overtones scrutinized by Sollorsand Grabes produceDutchman's allegorical mythical of race relations in America. to thehistory depthwithregard

Ill whichare based on iconographie Alice Childress's seem to showa plays, techniques, of the maze of African-American formation in out the sixties.Alice way identity does notbelongto thepoliticized Black ArtsMovement, Childress represented by activists such as Baraka, Addison Gayle, and Maulana Karenga (see Schwank309). as it were,Clay's argument in Dutchmanthat black art is only a Childressinverts, for violence. Her drama demonstrates thatthe debate over conceptsof compensation the disorientation artcan clarify violent conflict. Winein theWilderness generated by set in Harlem in is race riots the summer of 1964, when,coincidentally, (1969) during Baraka's Dutchman was first The dramatizes the bestaged. play uneasyrelationship on the one hand,Bill Jameson, an avant-garde a creative tween, painter, Sonny-Man, a social worker, and Cynthia, a thirty-year old facwriter, and, on the other, Tommy, and Oldtimer, an old lodger.This uneasinessresultsfromthe factthat toryworker, the first cultural as well as politicalavant-garde and the second groupis a self-styled are the people whomthe revolutionary lite allegedly wantto liberateand forwhose benefit theirart and politicsare therefore Not unlikeBaraka in The Slave, designed. Childress triesto demonstrate thatsheerstreet violenceand looting, which is goingon outsidethe immediate circumference of Bill Jameson's is too anarchic and apartment, uncontrollable to be of help.She also demonstrates thatthe conflict betweenwhites and blacks outside translates, to a certaindegree,into a conflict between blacks each other and within themselves. The between "the underclass, among discrepancies undereducated heroineof Winein the Wilderness as the true Africentrist, proud of blacks and her blackness," and "bourgeois, intellectual blacks whose whiteassimilationist and classist valuesexpose their racialdisingenuousness" (Jennings 65) highlight differences within theblackcommunity whichhamsocial,and psychological political, in important per blackemancipation ways.

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Bill Jameson's whichis too highup to be seriously affected by the artsy apartment, race war outside(see Schwank315), is markedby itsowner'smultifarious artistic and ethnic "The room is black wall dominated, pieces of sculpture, obviously predilections: . . . The roomalso reflects an interest in other darker peoples of the hangings, paintings. world...A Chineseincense-burner Indianfeathered warhelmet, Buddha,an American a a West Indian travel Wine738). a Mexicanser poster"(Childress, ape, Japanese fan, situation of the black painterBill Jameson The discrepancy betweenthe privileged becomes immediately and poor people like Oldtimer When,as a resultof apparent. in a scene reminiscent of the thirdact of Sean the race riots outside,Oldtimer, of liqO'Casey's The Plough and theStars(1926), carriesin a haul of loot consisting him: Bill Jameson admonishes uor,victualsand clotheswithpricetags stillattached, Oldtimerthat "Gonna throwyour life away for a damn ham?" He also instructs "revolutionshould not be looting and stealing.Revolutions are for liberation" that lootingmay remindshim,however, Wine 739).4 Oldtimerimplicitly (Childress, forthosewho are so poor thatanymaterial well be a form of liberation improvement and scholarship when he retorts: is welcome, "My day we didn'thave all thisgrants are privileged to Wine739). Only thosewho,like Bill Jameson, like now" (Childress, educationcan ponderrevolution based on a superior have reasonableliving standards in the abstract. affluent This clash between the positionsof well-educated, young artrelatively the and as it wereon one black hand, Baudelaires, poor laboring ists-self-styled of ethnic For Bill,his reflections the play's structure. determines on the other, blacks, like the play in an ambitious themselves which, allegoricalpainting, identity express The painting is dediscussesit,is called "Wine in the Wilderness." thatekphrastically a It is its American distortions. and voted to the ideal of a feminized tripAfricanity The first thefirst twopartsof whichhave alreadybeen completed. partshowsintych, little nocentblack girlhood, girlin Sundaydressand hair represented by ((a charming idealized stereorevealsan intentionally ribbon."The centralpictureof the triptych ". . . a beautiful faddish of with an African of stylization: overlay beauty type regal she is cold bututter woman, drapedin startling perfection, complexion, deep mahogany colors of African material, sparvery'Vogue' looking.She wearsa goldenhead-dress Wine740). What and sequins applied over thepaint" (Childress, klingwithbrilliants black vercommodified is a highly an ideal of unadulterated Bill considers Africanity visionof 'Wine in the definedby whitetastes:"Bill's misguided sion of a femininity femalebeauty, of physical is theMadison Avenueparadigm Wilderness' onlyin black4 This resumedat the end of the one-actplay,when Oldtimer lootingepisode is ironically in front of the windowand claimswhathe calls "myloot,"whichhe leftin Bill's roomhanging RunWine751-52).In Two Trains has been stolenby somebodyelse (Childress, which, by then, called Hambonewho lita character Wilsonpresents August ning(1990),a playset in thesixties, On the whole, and denied himby a whiteemployer. erallylives and dies fora ham,promised and hertenand precisedramaturgy realistic bothby Childress's Wilsonseemsto be influenced focuseson in terms of issuesof black art.As Childress dencyto discussissuesof black identity in Winein theWilderand writers in Mind (1955) and on blackpainters black actorsin Trouble in Ma RaineysBlack Bottom of musicians theblackpolitics ness (1969),Wilsondiscusses (1984) intothefateof a piano in The Piano Lesand SevenGuitars (1995) and condensesblackhistory son (1987).

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face. His queen is the slick, air-brushed,glamorized, ornamental woman who mutely stares frombillboards and magazine advertisements"(Jennings69). The third part of the triptychhas not been painted yet. It is meant to represent what happens to the ideal of the African queen under the unjust and repressive social conditions in the United States. Bill explains: of 'Wine In The Wilderness.' This is the unfinished third She's gonnabe the kindachick ... no,notgrassroots, thatis grassroots, ... I mean she's underneath thegrassroots. The lost woman,... whatsocietyhas made out of our women.She's as farfrom myAfrican she's as close to the bottomas you can queen as a womancan get and stillbe female, without crackin' unfeminine, coarse,rude . . . vulgar... a poor,dumb up ... she's ignorant, chickthat'shad her behindkickeduntilit's numb... and the sad partis ... she ain't to... thereain'tno hope forher.(740) youknow, gether, What the three images of black femininity in Bill's triptych are intended to be mutely is that the innocence of black children should saying by rightsblossom into a beautiful maturity, the of the but is really nipped in the epitomized by centerpiece triptych, bud by racial inequality in America so that the degraded image of black women yet to be realized in paint is the result.Notwithstanding the political criticismimplied in the Bill's assimilationist aim with the finished painting, triptychis social success within white society: Then 'Wine In The Wilderness' willgo up againstthe wall to improve the viewof some ... or maybea bank ... and I'll win a prize ... and the post office... or some library queen, my black queen will look down fromthe wall so the messed up chicksin the can see whata womanoughtto be ... and the innocent childon one side neighborhood of herand themessedup chickon theotherside of her ... MY STATEMENT. (741) The appearance of Tommy,the factory-girl, in Bill's apartment puts this assessment to a test it does not pass. Sonny-Man, Bill's writerfriend,and his wife Cynthia have met Tommy during the ongoing race riot and bring her along as a model of what Bill names 'the messed-up chick,' who is to adorn the third part of his triptych.But Tommy's presence develops into a deconstructionof the stereotypesof both idealized and degraded blackness represented by the painting and, by extension, into a harsh criticismof the shallow and opinionated inhumanityof artists and intellectuals like Bill Jameson and Sonny-Man. The play's central conflictis a conflictof attitudes towards AfricanAmerican identity. This conflictbetween different mentalitiesis visualized by the images of black women, projected by the painting,on the one hand, and by the real situation of poor blacks, represented by Tommy and Oldtimer, on the other. When they are firstintroduced to each other,Tommy is immediatelyinterested in Oldtimer's real name and pays him the respect to address him by it (741)- a gesture that establishes a common ground between them.Tommy's house has been burnt in the race riots,which render her homeless. Bill reacts inadequately and egotistically to satisfyher imby wishingto paint her "in her moment of tragedy" instead of trying mediate needs (743). The complexities of the situation triggera learning process on both sides, however, that transcends the gulf between artistichubris and material need. When Tommy explains that "niggers" burnt down her house, Bill reminds her that they should be called "AfroAmericans" (742). But this politicallycorrect appellation does not render the burningof black homes in the attemptto liberate the black race less absurd- not

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even to Bill. "They hollerin'whitey, ... but who theyburnout? Me," Tommy whitey And Bill to this concretization reacts of the struggle forblack libera(743). complains tionappropriately whenhe finally decides to offer her a meal,beforeshe shallmodel forhim:"First I'll feedyou,thenI'll paintyou" (744). Such concretization of theblack situation is the overall effect of Tommy'spresenceforthe intellectuals around her. on Bill's shelves, about she comments: Lookingat thebooks on black history "Talking this and and it. When in it that don' be poverty poverty studyin' you you studyin' 'bout it" (745). Tommy of the intellectual replacesthe abstractions approachto black into the domesticsphere.This holds true even forMartin politicsby its translation LutherKing'sfamousdream: I'll never what theReverend Martin Luther I liked forget Kingsaid... 'I havea dream.' him it 'causetruer words havenever beenspoke I havea dream, too.Mineis sayin' ... justtomeet tofind a manwho'll treat mejusthalf-way decent mehalf-way is all I ask, inmy inthemornin' tosmile, be kind tome.Somebody corner. Nottowakeupbymyself this world all alone. andface (744) meltis not an adherent of an interracial Whenit comesto love and marriage, Tommy black nationalist. While idea of included but rather a ing pot Cynthia's integration to could nevermuster energy Tommy enoughemotional datingwhitemenfora while, of love forBill Jameson in whitemen.She introduces a declaration become interested nothin' herindifference to whitepeople: "Whitefolks, happenswhenI look by stating at 'em. I don't hate 'em,don't love 'em, ... just nothin'shakesa-tall.The dullestpeohoo' ... Break it downforme The waytheytalk ... 'Oh, hooty, hooty, ple in theworld. to A, B, C's" (745). and emotionality. withsuch directness Both Bill and Sonny-Manhave difficulties has intopaintwhich believe to turn the black still want arrived, revolution, they They whatta "Whatta whatta novels and night, night, (746). night, nine-hundred-page ings Bill exfor and discussed It will be written, (746), generations" sung, baby. painted, and althoughBill has surrounded claims at one point.But, despitethisenthusiasm of black rebels and white himself withpictures of and books by the whole tradition Frederick abolitionists from Elijah Lovejoy,and MonroeTrotDouglass,JohnBrown, of about the perspective ter to MartinLutherKing and Malcolm X, he is doubtful butalso deploresthe LutherKingtoo tame, Martin blackliberation (747-48).He finds and aimlessnessof Malcolm X and the presentupheaval: "The directionlessness There's yourblack have bustedup Harlem,no plan,no nothin'. brothers and sisters in the same old bag" (747). full and we still heads revolution, whipped,hospital and desiresinto the woman's needs with her concrete maneuvers Childress Tommy for the future. of a to fill this void center convincing political strategy play's of "Tomorrow Marie" (747). This name is decoded as beinga contraction Tommy's more perrendered and thereby is concretized name symbolism somewhat obtrusive when Bill provokesTommyby StokelyCarmichael'sslogan that suasive,however, whenyou talk to "Then how come it is thatI don't feel beautiful black is beautiful. actuThe answerto thisquestionis acted out whenTommy me?!!" (748), she retorts. her "misWhileshe changesfrom partof Bill's triptych. ally poses forthe remaining skirt and sweater"and herstraight-haired, matched wig(741; see 746, "wiggy looking" Bill is raving on thephone and hernatural throw-cloth hair, curly 749) intoan African

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about the dreamlike, to an exhibition Queen beautyof the African organizer mystical on herBill's in the centerof his triptych. Tommy misinterprets eulogyas a comment "She is suddenlyawakened to the self and- lives up to his expectations promptly: as he Bill is disoriented loved and admired" of (750). by thisawakening, feeling being black girlfrom a moment as the disheveled reconcile the imageof Tommy can hardly of the imageof the African Queen he has unwittingly helped ago and the realization herto become.5 whichmaniof theclichsof black womanhood Thisirritation leads to a disruption of the in Bill's painting. For the moment, the dual imageand identity festthemselves him of her at all: "He makes a of him renders in front incapable painting hapgirl the otherimage"(750). When,in orderto hazardline or two as he triesto remember a he asks Tommyabout who she is and whereshe comes from, her identity, clarify who is ensues fromwhichTommyemergesas belongingto a family conversation in a black of black self-assertion through membership deeplyinvolvedin the history withthe turns out to be moreintimately connected Mason lodge (750). WhileTommy than self-styled black avant-gardists like Bill choose to forblack liberation struggle and bad dreams think admitsto her thathis self-doubts (see Jennings 73), Bill finally "I have a lot of bad thanhis ostentatious self-assurance are farmorefrequent betrays: in a weirdlookingart gallery, dreams People are standing they'relookingand at everything I've everdone.My workbeginsto fadeoff thecanvas, beright laughing foremyeyes.Everything I've everdone is laughedaway"(751). in black The complementary confessions of Tommy'sunpretentious involvement liberation and Bill's deep-seated fearof self-effacement and loss of personalas wellas artistic the uneducatedblack factory identity bring girland the black bourgeoisartist washes away misperception, closer to each other.Sincerity and emotional pretense, coldnesson Bill's side. "I'm glad you're here. Black is beautiful, you're beautiful" he exclaims. and Bill out the of Tommy, (751), Acceptance recognition by bring vitality who drapesherself in yetanother African throw and beginsto sing"a snatchof joy5 Thisdramatization of finding oneself withthehelpof one's idealization in theopinreflected ion of others is reminiscent of John World Millington Synge'sThePlayboy of theWestern (1907). In thisperhapsmostfamous Irishpeasantplay, theprotagonist Mahon developsintothe Christy heroicimage whichthe inhabitants of a remotevillagein Sligo projectof him.Similarly, the of a rebellion in on itself, as liberation is misunderstood as questionrelatedto Oldtimer turning is anticipated in Sean O 'Casey's The Ploughand the looting by thosewho are beingliberated, Stars(1926), a play whichdeals withthe Easter Risingof Irishnationalists againstthe English in 1916.Such intercultural administration parallelswould deservelookinginto withregardto structures of identity formation commonto oppressedpeoples in different nationaland historiIn some unexpected cal contexts. the Irishstruggle forliberation from psychological respects, seems to be comparableto the African-American Englandaroundthe turnof the last century - at least,ifplaysdealingwithboththeserevolutionary forcivilrights in thesixties situstruggle ationscountas indicators. In a similar drawnattention vein,Alice Childress has,in an interview, to parallelsbetweenWinein theWilderness and Shaw's Pygmalion: "In George BernardShaw's Professor claimsone maymake a ladyout of an uneducated In my Pygmalion, Higgins Cockney. Bill Jameson declaressome womento be lost beyondredemption, play Winein theWilderness ruinedby the society in whichtheylive.In bothplaysmen failto correctly evaluateantotally otherhumanbeing;because of macho-ego, of womantheyare prejudicedin the assessment hood" (Childress, "A Candle in a Gale Wind"116).

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aesand Bill even beginto developa commoninterracial ous spiritual" (751). Tommy was a as when that thetic, Shakespeare passingblack, his Tommy jokingly suggests is a genericqualityof the black race in her opinion.Bill adds markedsense of poetry and Marthatin the future black writers like Paul Laurence Dunbar,LeRoi Jones, will be claimed white culture Walker by (751). Clay's ideal probably conversely garet from itssubalof a black Baudelaireor a blackBretonseemsto becomeemancipated ternimplications. and even love betweenTommy and Bill is again deThis development of solidarity whenTommy learnsthatshe has been cast as the model of the messed-up stabilized she regrets her tomchickand not as the African Queen in Bill's triptych. Furiously, and dead ideas of blackmingto Bill and accuses himof beingensconcedin abstract ness whichprecludereal acceptance:"If a black somebodyis in a history book, or ... or if they're a statue,... dead, and or drawedon a paintin', on a pitcher, printed outta the way,and can't talk back," she tells him,"then you dig 'em and full-aso But whenyou runintous livin' and talk 'bout 'our' history. much-adamn admiration and breathin' us, ... thenyou comin' ones,withthe life'sblood stillpumpin'through You hate us that'swhat!You hate black me!" on 'bout how we ain' nevertogether. as "not the one you made up she assertsherself manner, (753). In an equallyfurious who can't talk ... the and painted, verypretty back, but I'm 'Wine in theWilderlady cussin'and fightin' and lookin'out me ... Tomorrow-Marie, ness' ... alive and kickin', for my damn self 'cause ain' nobody else 'round to do it, dontcha know" (754). in her life emerges as spiritfor concrete improvements Tommy'sangryfighting Thisfighting of blackself-determination. standard bothmoraland political Childress's Nationalism aims of Black which the turned into the is lofty against yardstick spirit are beingmeasured: out prescriptive do notcomefrom and self-worth knows thatidentity acting Tommy one's African or holding oneself with blackhistory, blackroles, art, surrounding reading culblack national ofa positive to thesustenance roots incontempt Essential familial Africentrism. The nurturofa guiding is thepossession Childress ture, respectful argues, for thepropaserve as theessential embraces that attitudes ingredients Tommy ingracial culture. ofthat 71;see 75) (Jennings gation cures Bill's veiled visionof thisin nuce. It finally demonstrates Tommy'sonslaught the negrois born,is not in W. E. B. Du Bois's words, The veil withwhich, blackness. it has been implanted whiteprejudice, cast over himby whitesociety. Through simply in the eyes of black intellectuals, too, and turnedinto theirown warpedperspective. blacksand in an idealized of uneducated Bill realizesthathis beliefsin the ignorance the black thanfurther, rather which distortions are so African prevent, many beauty Bill acceptsthathis first he wantsto achieve.Prodded by Tommy, liberation step in has to consistin sheddinghis own auto-stereoof black emancipation the direction of his tripin the arrangement themselves whichmanifest Americans typesof African that him realize her makes Bill's of rebellion conception against Tommy's private tych. a dreamI drummed but accessories, is "nothing his painting up outtathejunk room childand innocent vows to replacethe stereotypical of mymind"(754). He therefore alleas black activists, and Sonny-Man of Cynthia chickby representations messed-up to do our thing" workin' of "Young Man and Woman, (755), and together gorizations as "the guywho was here beforetherewere scholarships of Oldtimer by the picture

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the man the factolike that, the guytheykeptouttathe schools, and stuff and grants see him ..." let wouldn't the union rieswouldn'thire, 739). The centerof (755; join whomBill of the be of therearranged will, course, occupiedby image Tommy, triptych as to has learned but does notsee as themessed-up appreciate his Afrigirlanymore, of Harlem. winein thewilderness can queen,hisAfrican IV fromplays such as Kennedy's Funnyhouseof a Negro, In a fashiondifferent While have of themselves. Americans African deals withthemental Childress pictures condensafrom the dilemma inner of the a resulting Kennedyproduces psychodrama Childressachieves a critical exclusiveself-conceptions, tion of an arrayof mutually formas paintedpicthemin externalized distancefromthese imagesby presenting in Mind.Discussas in Trouble or as stagedplays, as in Winein theWilderness, tures, enables her to focuson the dialogicalneas black iconography ingblack psychology and acceptance of rejection whichin turnrevealsa dialectics of suchimages, gotiation withira painful thatalso feedsit.WhileKennedyforegrounds processof grappling threadswhichcannot of experiential a multiplicity innerdemarcationsreconcilable unraveled-a black politicsof recognition be successfully emergesout of Childress's fusionof verbal drama and pictorialdisbased on the ekphrastic black aesthetics, Americanidentity debate of Africancourse.Childress's repreby meansof its artistic betweenthe race on the in Dutchman modifies sentations relationship Clay's position of violent war and black art.For Childress, too,black artis fueledby therawmaterial conto channel of art the aesthetic trusts But she emotions. energies aggressive power and transformations the shifts that shows method Childress's iconographie structively. need notlead to suchexploauto-and heterostereotypes and intraracial of bothinterfusionsas in Kennedy'sFunnyhouse sive or disorienting of a Negro or in Baraka's bent on Dutchman.In Wine in the Wilderness, Africentrism, Tommy'sconcretizing the inauto as a corrective functions "smallbut real accomplishments" 73), (Jennings Childress's the same Nationalist art. Black Bill of Jameson's thentic token, By aspects or metadramatic developed in Troublein Mind and style, ekphrastic, iconographie, to the violentabcan perhapsbe consideredas a corrective Winein theWilderness, are based.6 violenceon whichBaraka's political and abstract stractions allegories between total and total between middle course a conflation, distancing Steering and dreamscape, realismand surrealist and metonymy, empiricism fantasy, metaphor a moremoderateapproachto the multiple dramaanticipates Childress's questionsof Wine Childress's earlierin thesixties. solutions thanthemilitant ethnic sought identity total de-Ameriwhen the theend of thedecade, towards was written in theWilderness canizationof black identity, by Neal, Gayle, suggestedin theoreticalstatements as such.The inof blackness thedeconstruction came to resemble Baraka,and others, of the playsdisstructures the on the one solubletensions hand, between, mtonymie
6 In Childress's one-actplay Florence(1950), a novel by a whiteman called Lost My Lonely of as an exampleof the insincerity the fateof black people,is mentioned Way,whichdiscusses uvre. in Childress's oftheart-within-art motif instance Thisseemsto be thefirst white liberalism.

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Achilles Jochen

of racially thejuxtaposition cussed,whichemphasizeethnicseparationby organizing subvert such which their on the different other, and, strategies, metaphoric groups, this of interracial the condensation similarities, insight. bespeak separatismby artistic ideal of undithatan abstract demonstrates Childress's Winein theWilderness to the formation of a viable Africanluted Africanpurity may be as detrimental towardswhiteAmerica.Childressalso demonas the orientation Americanidentity itsemphasison male protagonists thatAfricanAmericanarthas to reconsider strates uneduthe underclass, such as Clay in Baraka's Dutchman.By positioning Tommy, shifts Childresseffectively cated factory centerstage in Winein the Wilderness, girl, this emphasis.While Cynthia, accepts her husSonny-Man'swife,unquestioningly is tacitassumption thatthe black revolutionary band's and Bill Jameson's avant-garde revolumale and nothing but male,Tommy stagesher own black as well as feminist tionin Bill's apartment againstthe backdropof the largerrace war goingon outside. to "the black consciousness movement's ambition She thusexplodessingle-handedly thatreplicated the genderand class biases of white establish a black male hegemony 66; 73-74;see also Austin). (Jennings patriarchy" of artistic metadramatic Childress's processes- be theyliterary, pictoforegrounding a aesthetic forthedramatic or theatricalhas become rial, presentation major strategy identities in AfricanAmerican drama.Childress's of contested iconographie technique of AfricanAmerican formation is takenup againforsimilar identity purposes probing in plays such as Loften Mitchell'sStar of the Morning(1964), AugustWilson'sMa Black Bottom(1984), The Piano Lesson (1987), and Seven Guitars (1995), or Rainey's Suzan-Lori Parks's The America Play (1991) and Venus (1997).7 Justlike Baraka, bothin regard of be seen as a pioneering of thesixties Childress musttherefore figure in Baraka's its embeddedness and cultural and aesthetics. myth allegory, epiBy politics whose unique comsodic Dutchman overdetermination, however, acquiresa semantic moment ofthemid-sixties mostexclusively. plexionseemsto tieitto theturbulent
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7 For a discussion see of Parks'splays, see Achilles. For an analysis of Wilson'sblues poetics, Innes.

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