Joe Turners Come and Gone Essay - 750 Words

Joe Turners Come and Gone is a play demonstrating the movement of African Americans to freedom in 1910. The play is set in a boarding house which is a transitional place for newly freed African American to harbor while they adjust their newly-found freedom. The Images of travel and the use of the phrase the road interposes on the different transitions each character has during the play; the play examines how African Americans search for their cultural identity, following the repression of slavery. For many this involved the physical migration from the South to the North in an attempt to find a new start: In an effort to flee the discriminations they faced in the south and hoping to find financial success, many blacks migrated†¦show more content†¦Although many characters in the story migrate to Pittsburgh to leave slavery some characters do not escape slavery in their self until they allow themselves to let go of the past and find their own identity: In the 1900s black searched for a place in the world after slavery... Joe Turners Come and Gone their identity is called their song,..However main characters have trouble finding their song because of the internal struggle of whom they were and whom they are now becoming as a freed slave... (Sinclair 99). Joes Turner Come and Gone provide an example to how African Americans culture was established, its self-identity issues relate how African-Americans find not only their self but their culture as well, and once one can conceive that, theyve found their identity or their song: ...It is connecting yourself to that and understanding that this who you are. Then you can go out in the world and sing your song as an African ( P. 1352). The boarding house in the play Joe Turners Come and Gone is a place of transition for the characters in the play because it provides the characters a place to relate to other individuals while finding themselves: ...The house in the play acts as a reenforcement to the black community as it gives the characters something to identify with as they try to identify themselves.. ( Mathers 20). The road the play keeps relaying back to is a metaphor for the journey each individual in the play must have in order toShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Wilson s The Pittsburgh Cycle 1691 Words   |  7 PagesAfrican-American experience in the 20th century. As the second and fourth plays of the series, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and The Piano Lesson both explore African-American identity and inheritance in the first half of the 20th century. Wilson’s two plays embody a feature different from the naturalistic or realistic plays of the Bourgeois Theatre. As is said in the American essayi st Frank Rich’s comment on Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, â€Å"Mr. Wilson s play is a mixture of the well-made naturalistic boardinghouse dramaRead MoreDrama: Joe Turners Come and Gone Essay683 Words   |  3 PagesDrama: Joe Turners Come and Gone In the play Joe Turners Come and Gone, by August Wilson, symbolism plays a very important part in conveying the true meaning of the story to the reader. 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WhatRead MoreEssay about august wilson biography498 Words   |  2 Pagesfollowing that, Fullerton Street. Only afterwards was he able to concentrate solely on composing, eventually producing Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, his breakthrough product, which was based on a blues singer Gertrude â€Å"Ma† Rainey. Then he wrote Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and Fences, which was based on his stepfather who could not gain a football scholarship because of his ethnicity. August Wilson’s plays relate directly to his African heritage, and were and are a part of his success. His expression of theRead MoreA Historical Analysis Of August Wilson1946 Words   |  8 Pagesexperience through an exploration into the poetics of the Blues. 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