Rebelliousness
in an Untrusting Personality: “The Emperor Jones”
Introduction
This
study displays how the escapist killer from the Negro origin becomes an emperor
by exploiting his shrewdness and ingenuity in planning to deceive his primitive
indigenous natives. Eugene O'Neill is always concerned with the sea plays but
in The Emperor Jones, he left the sea to dwell on the island to expose his
protagonist's hysterical conducts. The temporary courage in the actual
cowardice is the main core of this study. The totality of the protagonist's
(Brutus Jones) attitudes, interests, behavioral patterns, hesitant emotional
responses, and the other traits that endure over his stay alone in the forest
put him in vulnerable or potentially unprotected situation. Worrying
uncontrollably about something or unreasonably suspicious of his native's thoughts
or motives has created a coward paranoid individual. Surely, living on a lie
lasts for a short time and this idea is so clear in Brutus Jones's personality
who is committing illegal acts throughout a lifetime without apparent remorse
or desire for self- improvement. Exhibiting an intensive fear and dislike of
his natives reflect his mental disturbances because he has been isolated in
situation with unsatisfactory choices. This fake authority figure lacks the
power of observation and perception of the surrounding environment or
situations as a result of the physical and psychological causes. Hallucinating
with the impression of being watched and pursued, he resorts to the forest but
it is an actual situation that the darkness of the forest is not sufficient in
quality and quantity to hide the anxious paranoid person. Striving for
superiority and power to compensate for universal inferiority drives man to
behave immorally. Also the individual's psychology may respond unconsciously to
the external pressures.
Undoubtedly,
People differ from one another in a number of ways, including age, sex, race,
educational attainment, and social status. In addition, the situation may play
a considerable role in the human behavior which is largely determined by the
nature and the characteristics of that situation itself rather than by the
characteristics of the person. Situation provides a useful reminder that often
our behavior is controlled by our circumstances, rather than by whom we are,
though it does matter. Even if we are influenced by (and surely we do), each of
us is likely to react to a situation in somewhat varied ways, so that our
behavior will be an outcome of both the circumstances and the nature of the
individual. The interaction between person and situation should be taken into
consideration to support understanding the personality. Situations are capable
of causing fright which often associated with a risk of physical or mental
death. Not only what is mentioned above is important, but environment also has
its own influence in shaping the personality.
The Feeling of Danger and the
Fear
According
to Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the society restraints are internal, incorporated
into each person's thoughts during the first few days of his childhood. The
earliest shackles on behavior are based on a simple fear of "direct social
consequences—of a scolding or sparking. But eventually the child inhibits his
misdeeds because he feels that they are bad not just because he fears he will
be caught and punished." The feeling of danger and the fear of what might
happen cause a huge disturbance or anxiety within the individual's mind and
heart. The effect of such symptoms might diagnose the type of human
personality. The totality of everything about a person, his emotional, mental,
social and spiritual make-up is the best definition of the personality. In
fact, it also includes ethical and physical make-up of an individual. Character
is just one aspect of personality. Most of the modern American dramas are
concerned with the character alone and neglected the other aspects of the
personality. There are many elements that build personality such as; physical
appearance, emotionality, intelligent behavior, sociability and character. What
distinguishes the disturbed individual is a set of personality attributes,
"shaped by his total developmental history, which are not adequate to
enable him to cope effectively with the pressures and problems of life."
Thus, the successful dramatist should pay attention for such elements to enrich
his analysis quality of the individuals.
Understanding of Man's
Personality and Self-Knowledge through Suffering
Eugene
O'Neill (1888-1953) is not merely the originator of the serious American drama,
but he is regarded as one of the greatest European dramatists of the twentieth
century. This great dramatist has made a good reputation by depending on his
experiences to be the basis of his plays. His plays reveal better and truer
understanding of man's personality and his life. He sees life not as calm but
as quite horrible, a thing akin to earthquake or destroying fire. O'Neill's
main concern is fidelity to the truth of human nature and life. Examining the
human nature under pressure, and placing his characters in difficult situations
become his main interest. To Eugene O'Neill "theatre was trivial if it did
not tackle what he regarded as the big issues. He was always concerned with
penetrating the social, with tracing experience to its root in
metaphysics." He uses poetic non-realistic technique like expressionism,
symbolism and masks to reveal the inner life of his characters, their sufferings
and frustrations. The emphasis of O'Neill is to depict inner reality, the soul
of his characters to reach the gradual attainment of self-knowledge through
suffering.
Gradually
O'Neill has achieved purer and higher psychological realism by using the expressionistic
techniques to expose the deep souls of his protagonists. The importance shifts
from the external to the inner hidden reality. O'Neil rejects that he is
influenced by Freud in manipulating psychological matters. He often denies
having been inspired by" Freud or any other contemporary depth
psychologist denial that has failed to convince a number of critics and
biographers. For O'Neill understood depth as timeless psychological space
within the self-sounded by authors who knew exactly where to look for it in the
family." The American theatre becomes capable to produce literary material
and express distinctively modern themes by the help of O'Neill's psychological
and aesthetic depth. Psychology is only one of many disciplines which study aspects
of living things, among "the so- called life sciences and the social
sciences. It is not the only one to study animal and human behavior, but in
this area discipline boundaries are impossible to draw with any
consistency."
InnerFeeling of the Paranoid Negro
O'Neill's
The Emperor Jones (1920) holds an important place in the history of American
theatre since it tackles the inner feeling of the paranoid Negro individual.
The main character Jones with a very specific background "is, in essence,
a kind of Everyman through whom O'Neill explores the psychological struggles
inherent in the human condition." It is necessary to know the origin of
this play and to confirm that O'Neill depends on his own experience and some
people whom he trusted. In an interview printed in the New York World of
November 9, 1924, he said:
The
idea of The Emperor Jones came from an old circus man I knew. This man told me
a story current in Haiti concerning the late president Sam. This was to the
effect that Sam had said they'd never get him with a lead bullet, that he would
get himself first with a silver one… this notion about the silver struck me,
and I made the note of the story… one day I was reading of the religious feasts
in Congo and the uses to which the drum is put there; how it starts at a normal
pulse and is slowly intensified until the heartbeat of everyone presents
corresponds to the frenzied beat of the drum. There was an idea and an
experiment. How could this sort of thing work on an audience in a theatre? The
effect of the tropical forest on the human imagination was honestly come by. It
was a result of my experience while prospecting for gold in Spanish Honduras.
The bloody Race Chaos and
Riots
This
great expressionistic play tells of an American Negro, a porter who by chance
comes to an island in the West Indies. O'Neill has written The Emperor Jones in
the time of the bloody race chaos and riots in East St. Louis, Houston,
Chicago, and many other cities. And within the context it is significant that
O'Neill has costumed his defiant black American emperor in a uniform. The
resourcefulness Brutus Jones, probably in flight from the jail has managed to
make himself emperor of an island by exploiting the islanders' primitiveness
and naiveté. He protects himself from the assassination by asserting that he
can only be killed by a silver bullet. Thus, the islanders have devoted their
time to invent such bullet to kill him. But the action starts as his happiness
and authority is due to fall. This play exhibits the desperate emperor only in
retreat from the island's seemingly primitive woods niggers, whose ominous drum
drives Jones out of his palace and into the forest. In the forest he abandons
his clothes, fires his revolver out of his own formless fear. Ultimately he was
killed by a silver bullet specially prepared by the natives of that island. In
O'Neill narrative, the uniformed black militant is captured and executed by
members of his own race using a silver bullet that they have spent the night
making without resorting to the law. The Emperor is a magnificent presentment
of a panic fear in the breast of a half –civilized Negro and this adds a
powerful dramatization of psychological obsession of shapeless fear.
Significance of the Title:
The
title of this play is so important, especially the use of ' The'. It suggests
that Brutus Jones is an emperor with unique, distinctive qualities that draw
the admiration of the audience and reader because he is both a type and an
individual. It is the first play in which an African American actor was put in
a leading role by a white theatre company. Brutus Jones has certain features
consistent with old negative stereotypes of African Americans, like
superstition and shiftiness, and his own dialect makes him seem uneducated.
Furthermore, even though Brutus is a black man himself, his use of the
disparaging inferiority term 'niggers' may be shocking for the audiences. Although
he is clever and persuasive, such qualities have landed him on the Emperor's
throne, eventually, in his right place. Although he is clever and persuasive,
such qualities have landed him on the Emperor's throne, eventually, in his
right place. He is brought down and his decline and descent may be seen as
putting a presumptuous black man in his rightful place. So, "Brutus Jones
is a controversial character, even more so today, when political correctness
demands that writers avoid these kinds of depictions." David Krasner has
affirmed that The Emperor Jones is O'Neill first sudden raid play into
expressionistic drama which is divided into episodic scenes. These scenes
expose and trace the mental deterioration of Brutus Jones who has drawn his way
to ruler ship over an island in the West Indies as yet not self- determined by
white marines. The people rise up and pursue him as a criminal when he is
discovered to be fraud. Eventually, Jones surrenders to madness and is killed.
Conclusion
In this
way we can say that, this great dramatist has made a good reputation by
depending on his experiences to be the basis of his plays. His plays reveal
better and truer understanding of man's personality and his life. He sees life
not as calm but as quite horrible, a thing akin to earthquake or destroying
fire. The feeling of danger and the fear of what might happen cause a huge
disturbance or anxiety within the individual's mind and heart. The effect of
such symptoms might diagnose the type of human personality.
Bibliography
·
James D. Page, Psychopathology
the Science of Understanding Deviance, 2nd, ed. (Chicago: Aldine Publishing
Company, 1975), pp.13-14.
·
O'Neill, Eugene.
The Emperor Jones, Anna Christie, The Hairy Ape. New York: Vintage
Books, A Division of Random House Inc., 1995.
·
Steven F. Bloom,
Student Companion to Eugene O'Neill, (London: Greenwood Press, 2007),
p.71.
