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Race and Racism
Race and racism have been around since mankind made its first steps on the planet and it has brought upon violence, submissiveness, cruelty, and sexism into the world. A great representation of these themes and issues was brought by LeRoi Jones, who wrote "The Dutchman". The play itself is a great representation of the relationships of races in America during the 60's and can even been connected to today's society. The Dutchman mainly focuses on the black-white relationship but can also be drawn to other cultures and races. I, myself, can also relate to what LeRoi Jones wrote in one way or another. Being a different culture and not being accepted was the first façade of America that I got to experience and even though things have changed for me, I do have resentful feelings because some things just do not seem to change. LeRoi Jones made that clear because he wrote a play that can be related to events that are still happening today.
The Dutchman is a fast paced play that makes an amazing transition from scene one to scene two. After doing some reading online, it has been said that the play actually resembles the version of the Adam and Eve story, where a white, insane, smart, and seducing woman prepares to kill a naïve black man. Clay and Lula are the main characters on the train and they engage in an intriguing and mind twisting display of word play. The play wants to steer the audience into a revolutionary thought process by proposing the idea of not being afraid, oppressed, and fighting back. The audience or readers feel stupid through the first act because Lula plays mind games and tries to bait Clay. LeRoi Jones did this on purpose because h ...