Joe Turner's Come and Gone

The double-consciousness and dualism of identity African Americans are confronted with when living as a minority in a dominant and racist White society is clearly exhibited in WilsonÆs characterization of Loomis. Loomis is bitter and resentful over the oppression experienced by African Americans at the hands of Whites. This makes him reject his American self because it is a self that must acquiesce to Whites. We see this rejection and bitterness when Loomis maintains, ôGreat big old white manàyour Mr. Jesus Christ. Standing there with a whip in one hand and tote board in another, and them niggers swimming in a sea of cotton. And he counting. He tallying up the cottonö (Wilson 92).

Loomis maintains he has seen things he has no words to describe, primarily abuses against African Americans. He cannot reconcile his past experiences wi

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m hopes to find when he encounters another shiny man. Bynum maintains that he has seen people leave each other in a manner that dooms African Americans in their united quest for identity and self-expression. As Bynum tells us, ôI take the power of my song and binds them together. Been binding people ever sinceàJust like glue I sticks people togetherö (Wilson 10). Too many African Americans are unable to reach the spiritual awareness it takes to resolve the dilemma of double-consciousness that plagues their formation of a whole identity that is true to their individual expression. Mills (3) points out that many of the characters in WilsonÆs dramas, like those who pass through the boarding house, are displaced souls in search of fulfillment, ôThe theater of August Wilson bears witness to the ceaseless wandering of African Americans in search of major aspects of their identity. The most trivial of errands becomes an initiation and transports the action to confirms of the sacred.ö LoomisÆ time on Joe TurnerÆs chain gang have made him turn away from the spiritual quest he needs to embark on to regain a sense of wholeness and real identity. He becomes angry with BynumÆs efforts to bind him. He does not believe in religion since
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1270
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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