Clay and Lula exchange glances as Clay sits inside a subway car pulling into a station and Lula stands outside waiting to board. At first, Clay smiles at Lula “without a trace of self-consciousness,” but then he feels a growing sense of embarrassment. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. . Lula is, in fact, a bit cruel. Grace excoriates her ex-husband for being pulled in too many directions, stating, "There are so many bulbs and screams shooting off inside you, Walker" (61). “Dutchman” thus represents a critical juncture in Baraka’s oeuvre, and separates his Beat-influenced work from the politically minded productions that would define his subsequent career. Clay is a malleable material, capable of being shaped into anything the manipulator desires.
Boy, those narrow-shoulder clothes come from a tradition you ought to feel oppressed by. They are anonymous, basically faceless. A suit, especially the one that Lula describes Clay as wearing, is a symbol of class, business, capitalism, and social status. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. The Flying Dutchman (Dutch: De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship which was said to never be able to make port, doomed to sail the oceans forever. Anything associated with Lula is a tomb for Clay, as she is his murderer.
Clay seems as desperate to prove this to himself as he is to convince Lula. Baraka does a good job intertwining both the realistic and symbolic in effort to get his theme across. .
Scene 2. The name Walker Vessels is indicative of several things. “What right do you have to be wearing a three-button suit and striped tie?” she asks. The subway car itself, endlessly traveling the same course, is symbolic of “The Course of History.” Another layer of the title’s symbolism is the myth of the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship which, much like the subway car Clay rides on, endlessly sails on with a crew that is unable to escape the confines of the vessel. After eating an apple, Lula offers one to Clay. The play's title evokes images of Dutch ships that carried slaves across the Atlantic. She manipulates, seduces, lies to, and twists Clay.
The play Dutchman by Amiri Baraka exemplifies the condition of black social status in the mid twentieth century through the exchange of dialogue between a black man, Clay, and a white woman, Lula. The papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of the plays Dutchman and The Slave.
As the conversation continues, Lula becomes more derogatory, her language more racial and aggressive, and she jumps up into a wild dance, shouting slurs at Clay and demanding that he get up to dance and to have sex with her. Clay in Dutchman is similarly malleable in Lula's hands. Copyright © 1999 - 2020 GradeSaver LLC. (Critical Survey of Literature for Students), Scene 1. Osborne-Bartucca, Kristen. She casts herself as Juliet to try to seem like a doomed lover, but the irony is that she is the one doing the "dooming.". This is not a particularly appealing comment for her to make, but it is indicative of the death that she offers to Clay. It suggests a solid job, a solid paycheck, and a certain adherence to the rules and norms of society. She only offers a wasteland in her temptations, one that Clay will not be able to escape from. Symbol: Clay's Name . He is interrupted by Lula—a flirtatious, beautiful white woman a bit older than he. She manipulates, seduces, lies to, and twists Clay. “Your grandfather was a slave, he didn’t go to Harvard.” Aware of his insecurities, Lula dares Clay to pretend “that you are free of your own history.”. This is a symbol of temptation, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Clay’s insecurities about his race, social status, and masculine prowess—slowly revealed as his answers shift from machismo to defensiveness—become the targets for Lula’s increasingly direct taunts. A South African term for someone who is a murderer of the english language, usually applied to the Afrikaans speaking population but can be stretched out even further to include many populations. There is no life here, no nurturing. The Dutchman and The Slave study guide contains a biography of LeRoi Jones, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis of the two plays. "Dutchman," written by Amiri Baraka, can be considered to fall into many different genres based upon different aspects by which one could focus upon. She attempts to engage him in sexual banter, and she ridicules him for adopting the posture and dress of the white middle class, telling him, “You look like death eating a soda cracker.” At the same time that Lula makes explicit sexual overtures to Clay, she harasses him about his middle-class identity and his resulting status as a dislocated African American man in America: “Everything you say is wrong. Clay in Dutchman is similarly malleable in Lula's hands. Another insult Grace lobs at Walker is that he does not truly love nor want his daughters: instead, he wants to play the hero. Lula proclaims that her hands will be as dry as ashes when she and Clay are consummating their flirtation. GradeSaver, 16 April 2019 Web. Lula verbally creates the scenario of a sexual encounter between them. Black music and African American culture, he tells her, are actually repressions of a justified rage that has kept African American people sane in the face of centuries of oppression. The metaphor suggests wires, explosions, lightbulbs, loud noises, and bangs, mirrored by the explosions outside.
Your grandfather was a slave, he didn’t go to Harvard.”. The image of the... What is the "Flying Dutchman Syndrome" and what does it represent in the play The Dutchman? Scene 1. What Lula does to Clay—abuse, manipulate, mock, taunt, castrate, and degrade—is what white America has been doing and continues to do to black people. Baraka has said that Dutchman “is about how difficult it is to become a man in the United States.” Nevertheless, the ancient symbolism of apple and temptation, and the myth of the ghostly pirate ship, The Flying Dutchman, used in Richard Wagner’s opera and other literary works, are carefully suggested in Baraka’s play and amplify the dimensions of racial conflict. When Lula is telling Clay what their encounter will be like, she says he will comment on her apartment: "This place is like Juliet's tomb" (26). Grace is correct that Walker is overwhelmed, but her analysis is ultimately inaccurate because it stems from her white, liberal, and selfish perspective. She rouses him in many ways and forces him to take on new forms of behavior. Set on a New York subway train, Dutchman opens with a well-dressed, intellectual, young African American man named Clay absorbed in reading a magazine. Certainly, the passengers are symbolic of society, but I believe it is more specific than that. The metaphor suggests wires, explosions, lightbulbs, loud noises, and bangs, mirrored by the explosions outside. Dutchman and The Slave are two plays by Imamu Amiri Baraka (pseudonym LeRoi Jones). Leroi Jones wrote Dutchman as he was about to change his name into Amiri Baraka and embrace black nationalism. “Dutchman” stands as an incisive critique of race relations through the sexually charged interaction of two characters on a subway.
Lula snarkily tells Clay, "You look like death eating a soda cracker" (8). Copyright © 1999 - 2020 GradeSaver LLC. Critical Context (Masterplots II: African American Literature), Critical Context (Comprehensive Guide to Drama). Clay tries to calm her down. At first nervously bemused, he becomes more agitated and forceful. Suduiko, Aaron ed. Suggesting that his thoughts are equivalent to explosions, bad wires, or cracking lightbulbs suggests that Walker cannot control himself: he is experiencing an … He declares that a potentially... Start your 48-hour free trial to unlock this Dutchman study guide and get instant access to the following: You'll also get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and 300,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts.
"Vessels" suggests not only Denmark Vesey, a 19th-century instigator of a slave riot, but also something empty, something to be filled; this is in line with Walker's anguished search for meaning. The Question and Answer section for Dutchman and The Slave is a great It can be traced throughout the entire play: the language, the setting, the plot, the movement, the dialogue, and even the title, Dutchman, itself. The oldest extant version of the legend has been dated to the late 18th century. Suggesting that his thoughts are equivalent to explosions, bad wires, or cracking lightbulbs suggests that Walker cannot control himself: he is experiencing an overload and does not know what to do. . . The myth is likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and Dutch maritime power. Clay, what with his malleable name, is an Everyman in this respect, and the play can certainly be viewed as an allegory of race relations and power dynamics. The smile that crosses Lula’s face is “premeditated.” After eating an apple, Lula offers one to Clay. "Dutchman and The Slave Metaphors and Similes". Suduiko, Aaron ed. He is a fake white man, she claims, and she wants to stir up his real spirit. © 2020 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This succinct insult comments on how remarkably boring she perceives Clay to be. At first, Clay smiles at Lula without a trace of self-consciousness, but then he feels a growing sense of embarrassment. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. She reveals little about herself, but Lula is clearly in control of the conversation and the situation as she perceptively and provokingly challenges Clay’s middle-class self image. The papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of the plays Dutchman and The Slave. Eventually, Lula’s attempt to force Clay to see in himself the negative stereotypes of the black male—as either oversexed stud or cringing Uncle Tom—goad him into an eloquently bitter tirade. The scene escalates in dramatic force until Lula unexpectedly stabs Clay to death. … These literature essays are academic essays for citation. Not affiliated with Harvard College.
Not affiliated with Harvard College. Imamu Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman is a play rooted in symbolism. She has no idea what Walker is experiencing. Clay is a malleable material, capable of being shaped into anything the manipulator desires. Lula uses this sartorial symbol to mock Clay's pretensions and to suggest that he is being fake. These literature essays are academic essays for citation. According to the legend, if hailed by another ship, the crew of the Flying Dutchman was said to try to send messages to land, or to people long dead.
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