This dissertation is an analysis of four plays of August Wilson--Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and The Piano Lesson--that are part of his dramatic documentary of the experience of black Americans in the twentieth century. / Each play is set in a different decade of the twentieth century, and depicts the struggles of blacks to deal with prejudice and discrimination in a white society. This analysis attempts to show how Wilson uses the themes of separation, migration, and reunion to depict the physical and psychological journeys of ex-slaves as they traveled from the plantations of the South in search of new identities as free men and women in the industrial cities of the Northern United States. / Intertwined with these themes are three other important clues to the identities of blacks--their music, the conflict between the Christian tradition and their African roots, and the question of whether or not they should have stayed South instead of migrating North. First, the blues are the emotional muse hovering over all the plays. In Ma Rainey they are an integral part of the subject, and in The Piano Lesson they take on a more symbolic role, but in all the plays they are a vital element of the atmosphere. Next, Wilson investigates the effects of Christianity on the African identity of blacks. Finally, the plays probe the decisions that led to the Great Migration North, asking if it might have been better for blacks to stay South on the farms they knew and understood, rather than go North into the unfamiliar milieu of industrial America. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-06, Section: A, page: 1946. / Major Professor: Stuart Baker. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76434 |
| Contributors | Pereira, Kim., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 212 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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