I wanted to review a few definitions and references of some
important factors that contributed to my review of the Dutchman and the
Slave. The term “Dutchman” doesn’t just mean a person of the Netherlands
or native Germanic peoples which happens to be the first definition listed
under the term; however the second term seems to fit the word quite nicely in
respects to the play. The second meaning listed says “a device for hiding or
counteracting structural defects” which to me can refer both to the setting of
the play as well as a specific character, in this case Lula the protagonist.
I found it interesting how all of the beat literature
we have been going over in class rarely sheds any light to the existence of
women. Since the beginning of the semester in the article ‘This Is The Beat
Generation’ by John Clellon Holmes he refers to the “eighteen-year-old
California girl” in his article, not as her, or she, or even as an adjective
but repetitively uses “it” to describe the girl. The article reads “its soft
eyes . . . it was a face . . . it looked up” and similarly in Jones’ play he
does the same thing. At the setting of the play it describes the woman as “it”
again by denoting that “it realizes that the man has noticed
the face, it begins very premeditatedly to smile” (4). I also notice that
Jones sets the Lula’s role to insinuate a negative appearance making the
reading aware of a cunning role her character will play. I draw this conclusion
because for a person to smile “premeditatedly” means that they have some cruel
intentions which to me set the stage for the entire play.
So all this time women have been in the shadows of the
public domain and finally in the Dutchman they are in the spotlight. However,
this spotlight has a degrading presence. This woman, Lula, gets to play the
lead role in beat literature and the role she gets is a scheming sexual snake
of a woman who enjoys eating “apples” and uses her sexuality to demoralize a slave passenger on the train named Clay. So the allegorical use of the
apple and the name Clay are used as a modern folktale using the idea of seduction
and oppression. The apple that seems to signify temptation alludes to the personification
of clay which seems to be a molding of God’s creation which suggests
alteration. Apples have a way of revealing a symbolic meaning is stories. The
legendary apple traces back to the forbidden fruit that Eve ate giving in to
her curiosity and temptation being misled by coercion of the original serpent.
From the first original account of sin came many folktales that use the apple to represent
temptation, knowledge, distrust and immorality. Clay’s character shows how
beaten he was in society’s portrayal of black segregation. This play seems to
take place during the Civil Rights movement, which I interpret as a metaphor to
the train in motion in the play. The train’s movement to me is a suggestion of
time transcendence and is used as a means of connecting the past, present, and
future of events. I think the play uses the elements of symbolic folktales by incorporating
Lula as a Jezebel, the apple as a temptation device who represents white
society, the name Clay as an oppressed and progressively changing slave, and
the train as the movement of societal role changes.
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