John Grisham

John Grisham

Amiri Baraka’s play of the Dutchman brings the unison of Black and white to the forefront. Set in the period of the 1960/1970’s it focuses on the stereotypes of Blacks and as white’s by being on an exposed subway surrounded by diverse people. Throughout Clay’s and Lula interaction they discuss the many themes revolving around them, such as the issue of respect and acceptance. Clay and Lula both discover that their culture has set certain stereotypes up for them. But what do these relationships between the individual self and history self say about Lula and Clay. The relationship between Clays individual and history self leads to his personal self acceptance. Clay is looking for acceptance as an individual, to be accepted for who he is, rather than what he like or how he acts?


Thesis
Universal concerns like individual self and historical self define us all, yet in Dutchman, the quest for finding personal acceptance works to help the characters find individual self and historical self by Clay and Lula in the Dutchman.
Throughout Clay, exchanges with Lula we can see were his individual self takes control over him. Clay’s personality is too focused on accepting himself as a man, rather than changing to stereotype. Although his desire is to be just like any other blue- collar American he finds himself struggling with the stereotype of his race as well as what Lula thinks he should really act like. Lula instigates that mindset which leads to a reaction to Clay. At that moment, out, demanding that Lula respect that he has become. In the following passage, we see Lula’s antics and how Clay reacts’s “Screw yourself, Uncle Tom. Thomas Woolly-headed. There is Uncle Tom……I mean, Uncle Thomas Woolly Head” (2755). Lula continues her bashing and we see finally take his stand “Now you shut up the hell up. Just shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything. So just keep your stupid mouth closed” (2755) . Clay...