27 pages • 54 minutes read
August WilsonJoe Turner's Come and Gone
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1988A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Legacy of Slavery
The overarching theme of the play is the devastating multi-generational impact of slavery on the African-American experience. The characters who arrive at the Holly boarding house are seeking to escape the degrading segregation of Jim Crow laws and subsistence poverty of share cropping in the South. The children of former slaves, they have inherited a legacy of loss and separation. Mattie’s mother died toiling in a peach orchard, Molly’s mother worked herself to death in the households of white people, Loomis lost seven years of his life and his wife as the result of unlawful imprisonment. They are alone, and disconnected from family and community, wandering from place to place, carrying the psychological weight of their suffering. In contrast, Seth, born in the North to free parents, is a generation further removed from slavery and is less directly burdened by its legacy.
The Search for Identity
The search for identity in the aftermath of slavery is a critical aspect of the African-American experience as depicted in the play. The characters come to the Holly’s boarding house in search of someone or something. Bynum, the boarder with the most developed identity, has found his song, and he guides the others as they seek to complete themselves, often helping them to clarify what they are looking for. Bynum, is looking to see the “shiny man” again to affirm that his “song had been accepted and worked its full power in the world” (15). The other characters are looking for love, direction, and a place in the world. Even Seth, the most well-defined character, is seeking a loan to achieve a greater degree of independence.
Discrimination
Racial discrimination, another legacy of slavery, is another key theme in the play. As Seth observes, many of the African-Americans who leave the South looking for “freedom” are in for “a rude awakening” when they encounter the realities of racial discrimination in the North (12). Jeremy confronts discrimination when he is arrested by the police as a pretense for taking his pay and when a white man charges him an employment fee to keep his job. Seth faces discrimination in trying to obtain a business loan and watches recent white immigrants advance economically, while he does not. Loomis is illegally imprisoned and enslaved. The characters are all aware of limitations imposed on them because of their race.
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By August Wilson
