Dutchman 625come together. Just like the natural world where
things like the four seasons and day and night often
remind us how harmony reigns, so Jefferson invokes
the will of God as the constant in history. He states
that we need to free slaves in order not to incur the
wrath of God for taking away the liberties of these
people; otherwise “a revolution of the wheel of for-
tune, an exchange of situation” is possible as willed
by God. In other words, Jefferson’s religious truth is
deeply rooted in the observation of nature.
Too often religion plays an important role in
dictating how Jefferson perceives the world. As the
Notes reveals, Jefferson, as an 18th-century man of
science, still struggles between religion and empiri-
cal truths. At the same time, the religious subtext
within the Notes remains a positive one that depicts
a balanced and harmonious world.
Huang-hua Chen
jonES, LEroi (amiri baraka [from
1968]) Dutchman (1964)
Dutchman is a fierce, angry, sometimes shocking
punch to the gut of American values, still as raw and
provocative as it was the year it was published. It is
a one-act play about difference and deception. Can
racial tensions in this country ever be healed when
both the conflict and the attempts at resolution are
based on lies?
The play focuses on two individuals—a black
man and a white woman—who spar, dance, and
ultimately crush the possibility of racial harmony or
understanding in a claustrophobic society, symbol-
ized by the subway car in which they ride for the
duration of the play. Lula chats up Clay as they ride
to an unknown destination. While they talk, the
upper hand rests with Lula, as she invites herself
along with Clay, tells him how to address her, and
(literally) tells him what to say. Clay plays along,
excited by her language games, until she turns espe-
cially vulgar and violent. She begins to insult him
and speak racial epithets—she accuses him of being
a buck and an Uncle Tom, and, briefly, the power
shifts to Clay. He erupts, accusing her of a foolish
self-deception and an anger that has no intellectual
foundation. He threatens Lula, stating his desire
to kill her and other smug whites who think they
understand race. Lula then stabs Clay and gets other
passengers to help throw him off the subway at the
next stop. Soon, another young black man walks by
her, and so the trauma and the violence promise to
be repeated.
Sharyn Emeryidentity in Dutchman
Is identity inextricably linked to race? Can we
separate racial identity from a person’s personality,
or would that create an inaccurate picture of who a
person is? In Dutchman, LeRoi Jones plays with the
notion of identity as we watch Clay and Lula dance
around each other—lying, seducing, insulting, but
not revealing their true selves until the end of their
doomed subway ride. Authentic identities ultimately
clash then, and so society continues wearing a mask,
afraid of the violence the truth might cause.
Clay presents himself as a mild-mannered, young
African-American man. He is educated, curious,
and polite, but intrigued by Lula’s games. He pre-
tends both innocence and concern as their interac-
tion warms up, caught between genuine desire for
Lula and disbelief in the things coming out of her
mouth. As the play progresses, he cannot keep up
his white-bread façade, as Lula’s insults (which grow
more racist each moment) elicit an angry, murderous
response. It is only in the final moments of Dutchman
that Clay presents his true identity—he lays into
Lula for her phony understanding of black life and
culture, claiming he wishes he could kill her for her
vile ignorance. In this last monologue, Clay reasserts
his own black authenticity and finally, forcefully, tells
the truth. As he speaks, he claims African-American
artists played music as a way of shielding their own
angry identities from white audiences and crowds.
Clay, as the voice of Jones, argues that these white
patrons do not understand identity—that of the
singer or themselves. The musicians cannot possibly
spend their time murdering white people, so they
play jazz instead. The play sets up those patrons as
believing themselves to be hip and understanding,
but instead they are self-deluded fools, or like Lula,
murderous liars.
Lula participates in this game of shifting iden-
tities, as well. Ironically, Lula loosely takes on
the form of the trickster, a figure from African-