theater or our imagination” and that, as such,
presents a mighty challenge to a “flesh-and-blood
actor” who aspires to fill the role. It is a play in
which, as Michael Krasny argues, “Toomer’s cen-
tral concern is the forces which inhibit, pervert,
and destroy innate spirituality” (Krasny, 104).
Baloreflects, as Rusch proposes, what Toomer
“found most exciting in the rural South, the ar-
chaic folk elements still intact in Georgia, the di-
alectical, musical, and agricultural traditions”
(Rusch, 118). The work anticipates Toomer’s rep-
resentation in Caneof African-American intimacy
with the natural world.
Bibliography
Hatch, James V., and Ted Shine, eds. Black Theater
U.S.A.: Forty-Five Plays by Black Americans.New
York: The Free Press, 1974.
Krasny, Michael. “Design in Jean Toomer’s Balo.” Negro
American Literature Forum7, no. 3 (autumn 1973):
103–104.
Rusch, Frederik L. “Jean Toomer’s Early Identification:
The Two Black Plays,” MELUS13, nos. 1/2 (spring
1986): 115–124.
Toomer, Jean. Balo: A One-Act Sketch of Negro Life.In
Black Theater U.S.A.: Forty-Five Plays by Black
Americans, edited by James V. Hatch and Ted
Shine, 218–224. New York: The Free Press, 1974.
Banana BottomClaude McKay(1933)
CLAUDEMCKAY’s third and final novel. It is the
story of a young woman who must overcome per-
sonal upheaval as she negotiates the tensions
between her West Indian identity and her experi-
ences in the British colonial world.
Set in Jamaica and in England, the novel fo-
cuses on Bitta Plant, a young woman from the Ja-
maican countryside whose name suggests fragility,
a potential for growth, and bitterness. Bitta, a sur-
vivor of rape, by a man (Crazy Bow) twice her age,
is given opportunities to recover from the trauma
by a British missionary couple, the Craigs. Mal-
colm and Priscilla Craig, longtime friends of the
family, intervene before Bitta’s father relocates his
12-year-old daughter. They take responsibility for
Bitta, bring her up as their own daughter, and pro-
vide her with numerous educational and cultural
opportunities in Europe. Additional challenges for
Bitta emerge when she returns to her homeland
and begins to realize the sharp contrasts between
“civilized” society and her folk world. Her cultural
rehabilitation continues as she encounters Squire
Gensir, a man whose name suggests a claim to
gentility and whose character McKay based on
Walter Jekyll, the English mentor and folklorist
who encouraged McKay’s literary development.
Gensir encourages Bitta to reevaluate her adopted
middle-class perspectives, and this begins when
she attends a tea in Banana Bottom. The effects of
her reconnection with the community are mani-
fold. Ultimately, Bitta ends her engagement to
Herald Newton Day, a young man whose educa-
tion in the missionary schools and aspirations for a
career in the ministry make him a seemingly ap-
propriate mate for the Europeanized Bitta. Rather
than “herald a new day,” Bitta falls in love with
and marries Jubban, a man who works for her fa-
ther and who eventually becomes a successful
farmer in his own right. This alliance, which con-
tributes to “the formal exorcism of Bitta’s demon
of Western culture” (Tillery, 131), represents the
triumph of folk culture.
Literary critic Amritjit Singh proposes that the
“resolution in Banana Bottomis achieved at a great
loss of complexity; by choosing a rural Jamaican
setting for his novel, McKay bypasses many urban
and international issues raised in HOME TO
HARLEM and BANJO” (Singh, 54). Yet, McKay
scholar Tyrone Tillery suggests that the novel repre-
sents McKay’s effort to “advance the theme he had
unsuccessfully begun in Home to Harlemand car-
ried through Banjo:that Western civilization was
the Negro’s cultural hell and should be rejected in
favor of the simple values of the ‘folk’” (Tillery,
129). The novel, which is enriched by McKay’s de-
velopment of a female protagonist, speaks elo-
quently to his interest in evoking and confirming
the rich and emancipatory nature of the West In-
dies and the folk communities of that world.Bibliography
Cooper, Wayne. Claude McKay: Rebel Sojourner in the
Harlem Renaissance.New York: Schocken Books,
1987.
Hathaway, Heather. Caribbean Waves: Relocating Claude
McKay and Paule Marshall.Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1999.Banana Bottom 25