“Tin Can” Marita Bonner(1934)
A bleak short story about delinquency and the lim-
its of salvation by MARITABONNER. Published in
the July and August 1934 issues of OPPORTUNITY,
the story focused on the impoverished CHICAGO
community that Bonner invented and used in most
of her fiction. The protagonist, an energetic but
scheming young adolescent named Jimmie Joe,
does all that he can to impress his gang and the
schoolgirl he likes. Idolized by his younger brother,
Jimmie Joe stops at nothing, including stealing from
his mother, in order to indulge his desires and
macho adventures. His mother, an earnest and
hardworking domestic, attempts to correct her son’s
behavior by taking him to church. The sermon on
the pitfalls of thievery fails to change her son, how-
ever. Ultimately, he is involved in a fight and
framed by members of an opposing gang. He is sen-
tenced to death and electrocuted. One day, over-
whelmed by her grief, his mother collapses in the
street. In an especially heartless closing scene, po-
licemen who see her prone on the sidewalk assume
that she is drunk, put her into the paddy wagon,
and transport her to jail.
Like much of her published short fiction, “Tin
Can” reveals the sincere efforts that families of
color make to save their children. Bonner offers a
pointed commentary on the high, even life-threat-
ening, cost of domestic labor for others and the
suffering perpetuated by unrelenting racism.
Bibliography
Flynn, Joyce, and Joyce Occomy Striklin. Frye Street &
Environs: The Collected Works of Marita Bonner.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1987.
Ti Yette John Matheus(1929)
A one-act play by the popular writer JOHN
MATHEUS. Set in New Orleans, Louisiana, during
the spring of 1855, the play opens as Ti Yette, a
light-skinned Creole woman, and Racine, her dark-
skinned brother, debate about their plight as people
of African descent. Racine is obsessed with HAITI
and the island’s powerful history. He is determined
to abandon the restrictive and demoralizing Ameri-
can society and to establish himself and his sister in
this empowering, albeit idealized, Caribbean nation.
Ti Yette, who increasingly prefers her given name
Henriette, is in love with Joseph Rhubotham, a
scheming white man who is determined to forge
documents that will allow him to marry Ti Yette
and claim her extensive property holdings that she
has inherited from her white father. The plans of
both men ultimately converge as Mardi Gras cele-
brations reach their highest peak. A heated argu-
ment ensues between the men, and Racine, blinded
by his sister’s seeming betrayal, stabs her to death.
Rhubotham abandons his sweetheart once the po-
lice draw near; Racine, devastated by his actions
and the awful end to his dream, holds his sister in
his arms and sobs.
Ti Yetteappeared in the 1930 anthology PLAYS
ANDPAGEANTS FROM THELIFE OF THENEGRO,
the pioneering anthology edited by WILLIS
RICHARDSON and published by the Associated
Publishers, Inc., the WASHINGTON, D.C., press
with which CARTERG. WOODSON and ALAIN
LOCKEwere associated. Matheus and the other
playwrights featured in the collection modified
their contributions so that they were suitable for
school-age children and youths to perform.“To a Wild Rose”Ottie Beatrice Graham
(1923)
A short story by OTTIEBEATRICEGRAHAMthat
focuses on the legacy of slavery and the efforts to
preserve an ennobling Afrocentric identity. Pub-
lished in the June 1923 issue of THECRISIS,the
story is inspired by the 18th-century Aphra Behn
tale entitled Oroonoko.The narrator is a spunky,
formerly enslaved man who shares his insightful
observations about antebellum life and intraracial
prejudice. The female protagonist in “To a Wild
Rose” is Flo, a slave girl who believes herself to be
a direct descendant of Oroonoko, the enslaved
African prince who strove to protect Imoinda, his
true love, who was abducted and forced to endure
life in a harem. Flo chooses to escape north to free-
dom with the narrator, a fellow slave whom she
names “Red Boy” in light of his skin color. The two
settle in different places, but Red Boy maintains
his ties to Flo. Eventually, he reveals his feelings
for her and proposes marriage. In response, Flo
“threw back her curly head, but she didn’t smile
her bright smile. She closed her black eyes lak as
though she was in pain, an’ lak as though the pain522 “Tin Can”