The Shaman's Apprentice: Ecstasy and Economy in Wilson's Joe Turner

Abstract

In his book August Wilson and African American Odyssey, Kim Pereira briefly engages theories of renowned anthropologist Mircea Eliade in order to understand events and characters of Wilson's play Joe Turner's Come and Gone (82-83). Recognizing that drama includes a search for self-actualization by a group of African Americans migrating north in second decade of twentieth century, Pereira asserts that it is only through acceptance of their dual cultural heritage that characters are able to recover from degradations of their past and renewal (56). The allusion to shamanic rituals, for Pereira, signifies this cultural reconstitution. Loomis reconnects with his African self and thus encapsulates Black experience (81). Pereira is certainly accurate in his recognition of characters' quest for self-affirmation, as well as importance of reconnecting with their non-Western cultural heritage, but he does not acknowledge centrality of shamanism to structure of drama. The events of Joe Turner dramatize election and education of a shaman, as power to heal and to manipulate spirit world is passed from one generation to next. The action of Wilson's play takes place in a Pittsburgh boarding house in 1911. The setting is appropriate to subject matter since most of characters are displaced people, whether uprooted by desire to find economic opportunities in industrial North or compelled to flee the eyes of watchful tyranny in South. However, their search is not motivated entirely by practical considerations--sustenance and safety; they are also driven by desire for spiritual renewal. The names of many of characters reveal their longings for edification. Bynum is a man whose craft is devoted to reunion of lost and separated persons whom he binds physically and spiritually. Having attained spiritual illumination, he is capable of facilitating same in others. Yet racial ideology of play suggests that, in spite of his knowledge of African folk and spiritual customs, he is nevertheless torn between two worlds. Bynum does not bind people exclusively; he also unifies cultures. His visionary sequence reveals conjunction of African and Christian motifs (Pereira 71). His quest for shiny man is search for an individual whose own spiritual awakening exceeds his own, uncompromising African Man. This paradigm of cultural resurgence is, of course, Loomis, who recognizes Bynum's negotiation with ideology that enthralls and exploits people of African descent and who lashes out at conjure man's effort to bind him as he was bound to Joe Turner's chain gang for seven years: ...Harold Loomis ain't for no binding (91). Loomis lost his religion when Turner captured him, depriving him of his family and his freedom. Loomis now recognizes collusion between religion and racist state and cannot bring himself to celebrate white man's God, who has demanded such sacrifices from him. Thus he wanders, physically and spiritually, in search of his wife and his beginning. The illumination that is implicit in Loomis's name is not divine madness of Christian saints; it is derived from a more ancient source--the ecstasy of shaman. Loomis's refusal to remain in company of his newly recovered wife, Martha Pentecost, reveals his aversion to Christianity and particularly to Western ecstatic traditions. The name Pentecost, of course, suggests visitation of Holy Ghost upon disciples of Christ (Acts 2:1). Martha has maintained her faith in spite of forced dissolution of her family. Loomis has sought her out only to deposit their child in her care and to make contact once again with period of contentment and confidence that characterized their lives together. However, Loomis's journey into past stretches beyond gratifications of those happier times. …