“The Flying Dutchman” is a nautical myth about a ghost ship destined to ride the ocean waves for eternity. The story is rooted in the legend of Hendrik van der Decken, a 17th-century Dutch captain who dared to sail beyond the Cape of Good Hope despite dangerous weather conditions. As a result, he and his crew were doomed to “wander these seas” forever. It is therefore said that the specter of the ship is sometimes spotted from a distance, usually accompanied by an aura of ghostly light. The mere sight of the haunted ship itself is considered by sailors to be a harbinger of bad weather or, more generally, an "omen of doom." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In the play Dutchman, LeRoi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka) incorporates particular elements of this myth in order to dramatize the dilemma faced by African Americans. adjusting to life in a white, middle-class environment. As represented by the play's subway setting, the figure of Lula and the climactic actions (manipulations) she and the other subway passengers commit at the conclusion of Dutchman, Jones's revision of "The Flying Dutchman" myth conveys the fixed and interminable nature of the race. relationships and power structures existing in the United States. At the end of the play, Jones creates his own myth of "freedom" for African Americans caught in this locked system of power, and constructs a modern legend that will also repeat itself in an eternal cycle of domination and destruction. In Jones' play, the ship of legend "The Flying Dutchman", doomed to an existence of eternal wandering, is reimagined as the modern-day urban subway. In the context of the drama, the prison of continuous movement and human entrapment embodied by the mythical vessel, signals the perpetuation of racial relations and established power structures. In particular, Jones uses the image of the subway to formulate his critique of the social reform taking place during his time. Written in 1964, Dutchman coincides with the radical movements and political turbulence characteristic of the decade, including civil rights, the black arts movement, and the beginnings of the Vietnam conflict. However, by placing Dutchman in an enclosed subway, Jones creates an effect of liminal space. As a “vessel” always in transition, the metro symbolizes movement without progress, action without change. Sinking into the “flying underbelly of the city” (Dutchman, 3), the subway as a vessel is nevertheless on a static path toward no particular destination or varied resolution. Therefore, by juxtaposing the liminality of the subway against the broader, implicit backdrop of its particular historical moment, Jones appears to suggest that, despite the changes anticipated or claimed by social "revolutions," the course of race and power relations will remain the same. (Whites will continue to dominate blacks). Moreover, like the revisited image of the ship “The Flying Dutchman,” the subway of modernity is plunged from the ocean waters above, into the “burning” (3) depths of the city below. By placing Dutchman in the urban underground, Jones constructs an underground space in which the actions that occur are projected in a light of raw truth (as if, in the heart of the metropolis, we saw reality, the "what is happening." really happens” – which is concealed by the artifice of the aerial world). The underground aspect of the metro also dramatizes the notion of repression, particularly that of freedom of expression. Clay's experience with this type of repression is highlighted in Dutchman through his interactionswith Lula and the legacy of white control that she encapsulates. If Jones draws on the myth of the "Flying Dutchman" to assert his belief in the perpetuation of systems of race and power, one could also view his play as using the image of a destined ship as a metaphor for this very paradigm of white domination and subjugation of blacks. In this way, Lula is herself an embodiment or extension of the doomed ship, both representing the history of race relations in America and acting as an agent for the preservation of this traditional ideology of power. For example, throughout the play's dialogue, Lula thinks that she has "tied up" Clay because she recognizes his "kind." She assumes facts about Clay's life – that he lives in New Jersey, is trying to grow a beard, and is on his way to visit his best friend, a "skinny black boy with a fake English accent” (10). Surprised by the accuracy of Lula's assessment, Clay wonders how she knew so much about him. “I told you I didn’t know anything about you…” she replies: “you’re a famous guy… Or at least, I know this guy very well” (12). Therefore, Lula is not just expressing the stereotypes about black people that exist within the white community. It also embodies the process of stereotyping itself and highlights the feeling of strength and domination that such an exercise of social control engenders. However, in Dutchman, the historical image of Lula is carefully, or more specifically, presented as one of seduction, and it is through her powers of temptation that she is able to trap and exert her "white force » about Clay. The depiction of Lula as a temptress is another way in which elements of the "Flying Dutchman" myth are reworked in Jones's play. As such, Lula continues to embody the image of the ghost ship by serving as both an omen and agent of doom, bringing misfortune to the unfortunate traveler who crosses paths with the haunted ship. Specifically, in Dutchman, Lula seduces Clay (the object of his bad luck-bringing “ship”) into his web of manipulation and destruction. Her seductive qualities are clearly established by her introductory characterization. Described as a "beautiful woman" with "long red hair", wearing "skimpy summer clothes" and "bright red lipstick" (5), Lula conveys the image not only of sex, but of a dangerous and threatening sexuality. Therefore, she is a temptress because she is predatory, depicted as having distinct designs on Clay. In the opening scene of Dutchman, Lula looks at Clay, who “idly” – or by chance – raises his head at that precise moment, meeting her fixed gaze (4). Noticed, Lula smiles “with premeditation” (4). This simple scene description suggests that Lula had deliberately sought Clay's accidental recognition in order to enact his preconfigured master plan (the white domination plan). Clay returns the gesture but, in comparison, his smile is “without a trace of embarrassment” (4). This contrast further illustrates the serendipitous nature of the encounter from Clay's perspective, and thus also highlights the intentional and preconceived qualities of Lula's project. She imposes the adversity of her “bad weather” influence on Clay, sitting next to him on the subway, invading a space he has already comfortably occupied. Once caught, Clay cannot escape his manipulations, his intention to destroy him. In fact, it is through these destructive acts that Lula, along with the other subway passengers, function as tools for the perpetuation of race relations in America. One final way in which the ghost ship of the "Flying Dutchman" myth is reworked in the contemporary drama ofJones is the ultimate destruction of Clay as rendered by Lula and the other subway passengers. Because Lula's manipulations are the product of her powers of seduction, as well as her adherence to the ideology of white racial domination, she comes to represent the historical image of the white woman who incites the black man to put yourself in danger. She achieves this representation in the play, and ultimately destroys Clay, by claiming full knowledge of his "authentic blackness" (having already identified his "type"), and then demanding that he satisfy her socially constructed definition of his " me” black. » For example, she criticizes him for adopting the bourgeois and middle-class intellectual image suggested by his clothes, his “funny book jacket with all the buttons” (18). Lula says: Boy, these narrow-shouldered clothes come from a tradition by which you should feel oppressed. A three-button suit. What right do you have to wear a three-button suit and a striped tie? Your grandfather was a slave, he didn't go to Harvard. (18) First, Lula here claims to know Clay's personal history through his generalization of his type. However, his knowledge is clearly flawed, as Clay matter-of-factly contradicts his last line by replying, "My grandfather was a night watchman" (18) (nor do I believe that, as a twenty-year-old man in 1964, Clay may have a grandfather living before emancipation a century earlier). Thus, Lula is so brazen in her faults that her ignorance seems almost laughable, and thus her assertions or demands of Clay are easily dismissible. However, the veracity of his statements is of no importance. Lula's strength, the strength of his manipulations, comes rather from this very heritage of white ignorance. It is this veil of ignorance that distorts the truth, allowing white society to believe in the legitimacy of its own inaccurate assumptions and then defend its acts of oppression. Lula's faulty knowledge therefore inspires or reinforces her (delusional) claim that she possesses an "understanding" of Clay's "authentic" blackness. She discusses this claim above, for example, when she insists that Clay's jacket represents "a tradition by which [he] should feel oppressed." She continues to goad Clay in this way, accusing him of not being completely "black." Lula considers him nothing other than a “white man with liver lips,” “a budding Christian” who “is not a Negro,” but simply a “dirty white man” (31). As she launches her attack, her behavior becomes more and more vulgar and outrageous. She begins singing a song that "quickly becomes hysterical", throws the contents of her bag into the subway car and dances in a provocative, obscene and deliberately embarrassing manner. She urges Clay to “stand up and yell at these people. Like shouting meaningless bullshit in these desperate faces” (31). However, Lula's "crazy" antics are not arbitrary, and his insistence that Clay stand up to his oppressors is not motivated by an altruistic, "equal rights" mentality. After all, Lula is both a member and incarnation of this system of oppression. Therefore, his actions are specifically designed to get Clay to speak, with the specific goal of getting him to both embrace and confess a "core" violent nature that has long been white people's fear of black people. . Inevitably, once trapped by Lula (white society), Clay realizes his ultimate goal by expressing himself and articulating this very notion of “black violence”. However, he considers that "violence" is not the essence of his black nature, as the perspective suggests.