Abstract
Dutchman was read by many critics as Amiri Baraka’s nationalist manifesto advocating black unity to violently fight against white dominance. In fact, Amiri Baraka’s thoughts of nationalism in this period were not so fixed but rather paradoxical. Due to personal growth and social background, Baraka devotes himself to black nationalism as a means of solving his alienation from blacks. However, the revolutionary part of black nationalism blinds him of its shortcoming: exclusiveness, which runs counter to Baraka’s social concern. What Baraka is concerned about is the African Americans and the whole Americans who suffer oppression. His uncertain stance reflects itself in the artistic creation of Clay and Lula. Clay and Lula are not simply angry black nationalists and white racists. When Clay suffers from racial bullying, his defiance shows the revolutionary side of nationalism. Paradoxically, he is also an obedient middle class assimilated by white culture. Lula is both a racist and a member of the lower class, which reflects Baraka’s Marxism influence.
Highlights
Amiri Baraka, previously known as LeRoi Jones, as one of the most influential writers in Afro-American literature, has received colossal critical attention for his various artistic and social achievements. He was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism
Ishmael Reed accused him of “endless depictions of white women as nymphomaniacs” (17). Other critics recognized his talent in literary creation
Arnold Rampersad counted Baraka with Ralph Ellison and other seven great writers “as one of the eight figures... who have significantly affected the course of African-American literary culture1.”
Summary
Amiri Baraka, previously known as LeRoi Jones, as one of the most influential writers in Afro-American literature, has received colossal critical attention for his various artistic and social achievements. Through rereading the characterization of Clay and Lula, she argued that the rebellion and compromise of the protagonists revealed that, in addition to the voice of protest, Dutchman is filled with strong senses of compromise and deep love between the white and the black She saw Baraka’s less striking aspect in revolutionary consciousness and strength of rebellion. Harris and Li Hongyan noted the less revolutionary aspect of Amiri Baraka in Dutchman My disagreement with these other readings lies in their rather unproblematic assumptions that the play is Baraka’s sheer nationalist manifesto advocating violent confrontation and protest. The paradoxical characterizations reflect Baraka's inner conflicts and perplexities in the early 1960s, when he was wandering between the life of the white avant-garde poets and the passion of the black civil rights movement
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