Identity Confusion of
character in Dutchman by Amiri Baraka
Dutchman is a play
written by African-American playwright Amiri Baraka. The play published in late
19 century. The play focuses on the two characters, Lula and Clay. Lula is
thirty-year-old white woman rides the train, and sat close to Clay,
twenty-year-old Negro. In the beginning, the plot built by Lula. Lula accuses
him that he was staring at her through window. Then she guesses what his past
and his friend, Warren that makes Clay shocked of her knowledge. They engage in
a long and flirtatious conversation throughout the train ride. Lula keeps
asking to Clay. She even asked him to invite him to the party and after that
alluded to having sex with Clay at her "apartment". The conflict
begins when she failed to manipulated him. She mocks him about Clay's
Anglo-American speech, his college education and his three-button suit. She
rides his being black and passive. She dances mockingly in an R&B style and
tells Clay to join her and "do the nasty. Rub bellies". (p.847) Then,
in the end of play, Lula kills Clay.
The confusion identity
also existed in “Shooting an Elephant”
by George Orwell. The difference of those is in Orwell’s, the main character
confused in himself about being colonizer. He is as a police officer
in Burma. The Burmese hate him, because he is white people (European), but he
would become a hero by shot an elephant. “All
I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my
rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job
impossible.” (Orwell, 1936). He was struggle with himself when he was in
condition to shoot the elephant. In the end, he shows his mind of being
colonizer when shooting an elephant.
In Dutchman play, the
confusion identity of main character, Clay appeared after Lula mocked him about
black people. In the beginning of play, Lula said about Clay’s appearance “You look like you’ve been trying to grow
a beard. That’s exactly what you look like. You look like you live in New
Jersey with your parents and are trying to grow a beard. That’s what. You look
like you’ve been reading Chinese poetry and drinking lukewarm sugarless tea. (Laughs, uncrossing and recrossing her legs)
You look like death eating a soda cracker. (p. 100). In this play, Lula brings
the conversation alive. She keeps offering apple to Clay. Many critics argue
that “Apple” related to an allusion to Biblical Eve. Lula seduced him with
apple. “Eating apples together is always
the first step. Or waking up uninhibited Seventh Avenue in the twenties on
weekends” (p. 150). The apple becomes symbolic which is related to Clay’s
identity in this play. First, when Lula always offers the apple, Clay answered
with “Hey, what was in those apples? Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s fairest
one of all? Snow White, baby, and don’t you forget it.”(P.855). Snow White
is the story about the girl poisoned with apple by a witch. That story is
similar with Lula’s. She is a white woman who brings the apple which means Lula
could be a witch to poison him.
Besides,
In North America, an American Indian (Native American) is called an
"apple" (a slur that stands for someone who is "red on the
outside, white on the inside.") primarily by other American Indians to
indicate someone who has lost touch with their cultural identity. First used in
the 1980s. The significance of the term “apple” is that Dutchman play also published in 1980. Clay’s appearance shows loss
of cultural identity. Cultural identity is about location, gender, race,
history, nationality, language, sexuality, religious beliefs, ethnicity,
aesthetics, and even food. When he in long monologue to respond Lula’s lack of
knowledge about Black people, he forget that he dresses, talks, and acts like
white people. When their conversations begin, Lula asks him if he was staring
at her through window, Clay answers that he did not. He just looks window and
he does not know he was staring. In that conversation, Clay looks nervous in
front of white woman. Eldridge Cleaver described the soul-lacerating effects of
that history four years later, in his memoir, “Soul on Ice”: “The white man forbade me to have the white
woman on pain of death. . . . Men die for freedom but black men die for white
women, who are the symbol of freedom. . . . Until the day I can have a white
woman in my bed . . . I will still be a slave.” Although Clay dresses like white people but he could
not cover his reaction to white woman.
The confusion identity
of Clay shows that the culture has been distorted (Multiculturalism). Multiculturalism
is the cultural diversity of communities within a given society and the
policies that promote this diversity. As a descriptive term, multiculturalism
is the simple fact of cultural diversity and the demographic make-up of a
specific place, sometimes at the organizational level, e.g., schools,
businesses, neighborhoods, cities, or nations. (Encyclopedia 1). In this play, a
black man who strives to defend his culture actually tries to follow another
culture. I think the speaker wants to show that multiculturalism could not
accept easily. This play also related to ‘Black National Movement”. Black
Nationalism advocates a racial definition (or redefinition) of national
identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. (Encyclopedia 2). Amiri Baraka is
also joins that community.
This play shows that
the confusion identity of Clay described how a black man in disguise being a
white man. He leaves his own culture and follows other culture. In the end, it
brings him in the death. The idea of disguise occurred in some plays (M.
Butterfly, King Lear), but the disguise in Dutchman play is clearly seen from
Clay’s body (he cannot cover his skin even though he talks, dresses, and acts
like white man).
Bibliography
Baraka, A. (1980).
Dutchman. In G. McMichael, Anthology of American Literature. New
York: MacMillan Publishing.
Orwell,
George. 1936. Shooting an Elephant. Retrieved
on Friday, March 15 2013 at 20.00 PM from http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/887/
Cleaver, E., & Geismar,
M. (1968). Soul on ice (p. 9799103). New York: Dell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_nationalism
(Final paper)
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