Joe turner's come & gone

What is the plot,

The play's setting is in 1911 during the Great Migration era of the African Americans travelling from the South to the North. The main concern for Wilson is to manifest the Africanness through the historical experience and identity of the African Americans. Bynum is a character who plays crazy, but he is not. He uses roots and birds to perform his ritual, and he makes people believe in the existence of supernatural. His activities are mainly a calling. He has a gift of binding people be it a woman or man or family members. He also has the wisdom of foreseeing whether or not two people should be together. He then delicately and caringly advises the people involved about what he thinks and proposed to them the right thing. Herald is a very disturbed character. He and his daughter are in search for Martha her wife and mother of the girl. He knows that Martha has gone on with her life after he was captured against his will by Joe Turner for seven years in slavery. All the actions happen in Seth Holy’s boarding house. He has his wife Bertha who is a big-hearted woman ready to help those she meets.

What is the problem/conflict?

The conflict in the play is that the occupants of the boarding house are in search for something. Bynum is a mystic old medicine man who is in search of the secrets of life. Seth is the proprietor with the dream of becoming an entrepreneur. The youthful Navy Jeremy is in search of adventure, sex and a life of playing guitar on the road. The main impetus of the drama is with the arrival of Herald Loomis with his daughter. Herald is a taciturn and brooding figure in the search of his wife whom he saw almost a decade ago before going into slavery by the white plantation owner and bounty hunter.

What is the information conveyed in the exposition?

The play chronicles the lives and struggles of African American at the end of the Civil War of the 20th century. The play chronicles the lives of the newly freed slaves of the north and with the conflicts of discrimination and racism.

Who is the protagonist?

Herald Loomis is the troubled protagonist who is in search of his wife, Martha. Bertha asks her husband why she does not inform Loomis of any whereabouts he might know about his wife. Seth response say, "But I am not going to tell this old mean –looking and wild -eyed nigger nothing. " the term nigger in this play enables Seth to see himself as being superior and distinct from the rest of his black boarders on migration. However, Wilson shows the ironies of self –perception. Seth aims to have a lucrative and foolproof business plan, but he finds that the white bakers are not willing to loan him money in starting his business.

What is the major dramatic question raised

Thus, the major dramatic question is the class division and how the African Americans have to do be seen equal to their white counterpart. The problem in this play has not whether Turney or Joe Turner was real but how would Herald Loomis overcome his personal crisis and his psychic scars of his harrowing servitude. The suffering at the hands of Joe Turner and ability to prevail and endure is a symbolic aspect resonating the collectively internalized oppression and trauma that the black Americans had to endure.

Describe the rising action.

The rising action is the minor conflicts around other characters in search of their identities. The climax of this play is with the arrival of Herald Loomis, who symbolizes the collective depression, slavery, and passes of the African Americans. The climactic scene is when Loomis cuts his chest and covers his face with blood

What is the answer to the major dramatic question: yes or no?

"They Tell Me Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’; is a song that Bynum sings which functions as signifying and ritualistically practices. The song compels Herald to think of his imprisonment at Turner’s plantation. It was an incarceration period that left him alienated, confused and isolated. Bynum tells Loomis that that is his dedicated song. At this point, Loomis through the distance of Bynum reaches a point of rediscovery and the larger ramifications of the song. Thus, this song is critical to the central ritual movement and meaning of the play.

What is the denouement?

Looms act of covering himself in blood is the form of cleansing as well as a bold act of self-determination. It is a point he feels liberated spiritually and finally feels historically reconnected.

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