Joe Turner’s Come and Gone: rough draft
In Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, August Wilson teaches us many things. One of them is to know who you are. Wilson created many characters that are searching for their identity, whether it’s societal, familial, or personal. In August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone he uses identity to show that people need to find out who they are.
Free blacks come to the city to make lives for themselves. They want to make money and raise families without prejudice. But more than that, they are searching for an identity beyond their ancestors being slaves.
This book/play takes place in Pittsburg, Virginia in the year 1911. Slavery is illegal at this time, but a man named Joe Turner captures blacks and enslaves them for many years. The blacks tend to lose their identity once released from Joe Turner’s chain gang. Other characters in this book/play may be younger so they still have time to create a distinct identity for themselves.
(continuing)
2007-03-27
18:35:13
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i'm in eighth grade
2007-03-27
19:21:20 ·
update #1
(continue)Everyone has a song deep within them, it defines who you are. A man named of Herald Loomis forgot his song during his seven year time in Joe Turner’s chain gang. He has been drained of almost everything that defines him. A man named Bynum said that Loomis “now he’s [Joe Turner] got you bound up to where you can’t sing your own song. Couldn’t sing it them seven years ‘cause you was afraid he would snatch it from under you. But you still got it. You just forgot how to sing it” (act 2; scene 2).
Herald Loomis doesn’t know where his wife is because when Joe Turner released him she was gone. He believes that if he sees her everything will be okay. He will be able to start over with a clean slate and begin his journey of finding his identity. When he sees his wife, Martha Pentecost he gives up their daughter that was in his care to her. After that, he stabs himself and wipes the blood all over his face in order to cleanse himself. That action was taken to show
2007-03-27
19:24:49 ·
update #2