Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

1. Introduction. 2

 

2. Expression and Formation of Identity through Music 3

2.1 Authentic South vs. Economic North. 3

2.2 Music that Breathes and Touches. 5

 

3. The Urban Experience. 6

3.1 The City in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.. 6

3.2 How do the Play’s Characters Serve to Describe the City?. 7

3.3 Alienation and Uprootedness. 10

3.4 The City as a Godless Place. 15

 

4. Conclusion. 23

 

5. Bibliography. 26

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.                Introduction

 

This article will be concerned with the possible ways of construction of identity[1] or the loss of identity – particularly the African American identity – in the modern metropolis as it is described in August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Which ways to construct a proper identity present themselves to the characters in the play and what will happen when they fail to acknowledge and accept these ways? In this regard, I will examine the relevance of music, society, and religion.

 

Chapter Two will show that it is essential for the understanding of the alienation of the individual, in this case specifically the alienation of the African American musician, to take into consideration the differences between rural South and urban North and the different kinds of music connected to them. From the contrast of South and North, i.e. rural and urban springs the conflict between the old, down-home blues and the new, urban blues, which will later become swing or jazz respectively. The chapter will further address the question which impact this conflict will have on the life scripts of the individual characters. Moreover, the connection between the musician, his instrument, and the music will be examined and explained.

Chapter Three will explore the various facets of alienation and their respective sources in more detail. Moreover, it will identify and further illuminate possible ways of forming identity and which processes endanger and impede the formation of identity. Therefore, it is first necessary to diagnose how Wilson and his characters’ actions describe the urban environment. Do these actions benefit or harm the formation of identity or do they promote alienation? Can music, religion, or ancestral awareness help the city-dwelling individual to arrive at a full-rounded ontological definition of selfhood?

Chapter Four will summarise the findings of the previous chapters and evaluate them with regard to the questions raised in this introduction. Furthermore, it will briefly touch upon other possible topics that could have found treatment in this paper or which could be elaborated in another scholarly piece.

 

2.                            Expression and Formation of Identity through Music

2.1             Authentic South vs. Economic North

In the Chicago recording studio, two views of music clash and struggle for dominance. On one side, there are Ma Rainey and Toledo, the representatives of the traditional rural blues and on the other side there are Levee, Sturdyvant, and Irvin who represent the modern urban blues.

Ma Rainey has retained her strong and heartfelt connection to her own origins and the origins of her music, which gives her power and authenticity. Ma knows that her popularity is firmly grounded in the South and with it her overall success. She remembers the roots of blues and respects them. Boosting Sylvester’s self-esteem is more important to her than having a perfect and financially successful recording (74ff). Therefore, she feels a closer connection to the South than to the city; she is more concerned about people than with money. She says herself that “Ma listens to her heart. Ma listens to the voice inside her” (63). Although she is aware of the fact that she is still exploited by the white music producers, she is trying to exert her power to the limit. She never gives the voice of commercialism, that is the arguments of Sturdyvant and Irvin, a chance to have a bearing on her music. Also Pereira notes that “her strength comes from a deep understanding of the sensibilities that inform the blues. Any attempt to tamper with it is tantamount to a personal attack on her; to compromise this music is to desecrate the thing most sacred to her, the essence of her identity” (Pereira 21).

Besides Ma, there is still another character who serves as a representative of the old rural blues: Toledo. The piano player Toledo is in full “control of his instrument” (20) and he is aware that the music it produces can just be as good as he is at playing it. His musical insight corresponds to his thinking he can only be who he is in relation to what he knows about his own roots and the origins of his people and how truthfully he keeps to them.

Slow Drag and Cutler assume a position that is on the respective outer margins of the two extremes of Ma and Levee. Although “innate African rhythms underlie everything” (20) Slow Drag plays and he tries to talk Toledo into sharing a joint with him in a way that Toledo identifies as an “African conceptualization” (32), Slow Drag rejects anything African in connection to his person and protests angrily: “I ain’t no African! I ain’t doing no African nothing” (32). Nevertheless, he could be counted as belonging to Ma’s camp.

Cutler does not show any special connection to his African or southern roots. When Levee tries to play his own interpretation of Ma’s song during the rehearsal, Cutler reminds him of his task as member of the accompaniment band and states his own work ethos: “I just play the piece. Whatever they want” (26). He shows thus that he is still wilfully acquiescing into the traditional role of the black entertainer who – just like in the times of slavery – provides music for his master[2]. On the southern plantations, slaveholders would expect their slaves to play tunes for white entertainment. “The post-emancipation economy retain[s] blacks in a less obvious form of bondage” (Snodgrass 185) and therefore Cutler still plays music complying to the wish of his master – in this case his boss and black bread giver Ma Rainey.

Then again Levee the traditional blues contemptuously referring to it as “old jug-band shit” (26) and “old circus bullshit” (64). Just like Sturdyvant, he wants to “put in something different […], something wild … with a lot of rhythm” (19) in order to meet the taste of urban music consumers. Music, then, for Levee does not so much express who he is but rather who he wants to become. The identity that he is hoping to construct would not be grounded in the blues as music but in the blues as commodity. Accordingly, the blues is not expression of but instrument to identity, which implies that he still has not found himself and that his identity – in case he should indeed be able to mould it – would be of a rather superficial nature. ”Levee sees this musical transformation as the key to his own economic – perhaps even ontological – transformation” (Bogumil 24).

 

The blues is not simply a feel-good music for entertainment, or a means to escape one’s problems or a means to gain one’s livelihood like Levee, Sturdyvant and Irvin see it but it is a way of seeing life, of talking about life, and of understanding life. This constitutes the main difference in the perception of blues music in the urban North and the rural South.

 

2.2             Music that Breathes and Touches

August Wilson speaks of the blues as a “music that breathes and touches, [t]hat connects” (xvi). However, it is not only the spirit of the music, which is alive with the African heritage and that breathes the life experiences of its performers but also the instruments that Wilson’s characters in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom play become ‘alive’. On stage, the characteristic features of the instruments assume human form through their respective players. The roles of the characters in the band correspond to the functions of their respective instruments; thus, musical instruments symbolise character traits. True devotion to the mastery of the instrument and to the music is then tantamount with having found one’s proper way in life.

Slow Drag’s low-key behaviour corresponds to the task of his instrument; he plays the bass “with an ease that is at times startling” (20) and serves as a “model of stability” (Snodgrass 187).

With the trombone, Cutler is also playing a background instrument. The trombone is an instrument of rhythm and harmony (Leuchtenmüller 107). The instrument’s function in a musical ensemble ties in nicely with Cutler’s responsibility as the band’s leader; he sets the pace and he continuously tries to calm down heated discussions between the other band members and to restore harmony to which he does not always succeed. His playing is just as unembellished (20) as his behaviour is unpretentious.

Toledo plays the piano, an instrument that is often regarded as a musical instrument of sophistication and learnedness. Hence, it is only natural that the literate, philosophising bookworm Toledo is the band’s pianist. His frequent references to the black American’s African roots make him appear as a rather traditional and, in the best sense of the word, conservative man, which is perfectly in line with the role of the piano in ragtime. “From its beginnings, rag music was associated primarily with the piano” (Southern 314); it is at the root of jazz. “From the fusion of blues, ragtime, brass-band music, and syncopated dance music came jazz […]” (Southern 365) and swing.

Then again, Levee Green is the most conspicuous of the four musicians. The trumpet best reflects his “flamboyance” (23), “bright temper” (23), “strident voice” (23), and his urge to be the centre of attention. The trumpet as a solo instrument underscores Levee’s ambitious selfishness. The fact that “he plays wrong notes frequently” (23), that he is in the “process of discovering his instrument” (Pereira 23) symbolically reflects that he is also in a process of discovering himself. Levee, spurred by ambition and pride denies his own origins and those of the music he plays and therefore does neither integrate into the band nor into the black community.

There are not only the musical instruments that will breathe and touch being thus endowed with a life of their own but conversely the play itself with its actors turns into music, namely a blues composition. The continuous quarrels between the band members correspond to the call and response pattern of a blues song, which is interspersed with various solo parts in which the band members take turns in telling a story from the rural past. The play then comes to an end in a final crescendo when Levee kills Toledo.

 

3.                The Urban Experience

3.1             The City in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

The city of Chicago is depicted as a cold place of contradictory and conflicting characteristics. It is the home of “millionaires and derelicts” (xv), gangsters, whores, and pious Irish grandmothers (xv). Wilson describes it as a rough and bruising city (xv) and juxtaposes the Northside with the Southside, black life with white life, and the spiritual with the profane.

On the white Northside, secretaries return from their lunch break and a priest and altar boys who have just finished the noon mass populate the streets of the city. Meanwhile, the “procession of cattle cars through the stockyards continues unabated” (xv). Wilson presents profane business on an equal footing with religion and thus suggests the apotheosis of money in the urban environment.

At the same time, the situation on the Southside of Chicago is completely different. “Sleepy-eyed negroes move lazily toward their small cold-water flats […] to await the onslaught of the night” (xv) when they will crowd the bars and juke joints. There is no bustling business life but dazed drinking. Instead of spiritual solace through church service, the blacks draw comfort out of the blues’ “vision and prayer” (xvi). However, the rural roots of the blues have been “strangled by the northern manners and customs” (xvi) pertaining to a capitalist and industrialist ideology.

 

Moreover, Wilson’s introduction to the play gives a first hint at the damage the city has inflicted on the people’s spirituality and moral integrity. The moonlight that “has fallen through a window and broken into thirty pieces of silver” (xv) reminds of Judas who received the very same amount of money for betraying his Lord and spiritual leader Jesus. This image insinuates that above the city looms a miasma of betrayal, bribery, corruption, and godlessness: For a few Dollars from Irvin the police officer investigating Ma Rainey’s car accident is turning a blind eye to the whole affair of alleged assault and battery. The episode of Ma Rainey’s accident describes the city as a place of violence and venality where blacks are still discriminated against and cannot even get a taxi (95) or later when it comes to paying the musicians that blacks are eyed with suspicion when they try to cash a check (106). Behind Ma’s back, her young girlfriend Dussie Mae lets herself be fondled and kissed by Levee. Throughout the play, much swearing and blasphemy is heard. Levee even tries to challenge God to a fight by insulting Him and threatening to kill Cutler.

 

The stage directions and various side incidents in the play provide for a first sketch of city life but the interaction and talk of the protagonists add colour and nuances to the urban image. The following chapter will explore in more detail in which ways the traits of the play’s characters, their interaction, and their language serve to describe the city.

 

3.2             How do the Play’s Characters Serve to Describe the City?

The lines the characters speak and the way in which they act with and react to their environment provides further insight into city life and gives answers to questions about urban dwellers, their relationships to one another, their relationship to God and their attitudes towards money, identity, and business. How do the characters in the play fit into the present power structure and in which way does the city influence their behaviour?

 

Among the most ‘urban’ characters are Mel Sturdyvant, the white recording studio owner and his employee Irvin, the white manager of Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey. Sturdyvant is ”preoccupied with money,“ he is “insensitive to black performers” and “prefers to deal with them at arm’s length” (17). On the one hand, this is a sign that business and money are more important to him than people but on the other hand, it shows that money makes everybody equal and that Sturdyvant is democratic in terms of race policy. He simply wants to record the songs on the agenda as quickly and as cost-efficient as possible and get rid of the performers immediately after the recording session is over. “Just like clockwork” (18). Snodgrass, however, sees Sturdyvant as a “symbol of segregation” (Snodgrass 192) in his “separate world above blacks rehearsing in the basement” (Ibid.).

Although Sturdyvant does avoid too close a contact with the musicians, this behaviour – in my view – is not informed by a racist or segregationist attitude but rather by his wish to produce music efficiently, to have power over the performers and by the alienation from his present field of business, which he perceives as being not respectable. His non-racist attitude is further underscored by his desire to leave the music business behind and to embark on a new career in the textile business (19) where many Irish were working at the time for ludicrously little money. It is “a dark bit of humor that refers to a labor force as badly discounted and exploited as blacks” (Ibid.). Consequently, money is the common denominator for him by which everything and everybody will be measured. As Simmel points out, money is colourless and impersonal (Simmel, 1995 78-94). Moreover, money creates relationships between people doing business with one another but by being completely indifferent to the persons’ individuality. Thus, money generates indifference, anonymity, and alienation (Ibid.). Musicians become human capital and their music becomes a commodity that is produced as if on a conveyor belt. Just like in other branches of industry, tasks are clearly defined and distributed among the staff. Sturdyvant reminds Irvin of this division of labour by impressing on him that he is Ma Rainey’s manager, that she falls under his responsibility, and the he, Sturdyvant, will not have anything to do with her or suffer any of her whims.

Irvin must be seen in a similar light. He shares Sturdyvant’s disrespect and thoughtlessness with regard to the recording artists in the studio. He cannot even remember their names properly and needs to be told Toledo’s name by the latter (53). Whenever Irvin tries to calm down the tense Sturdyvant by reassuring him that he will take care of Ma Rainey, he talks as if she was not present although Ma is standing right next to him: “Let me handle it, Mel. I know how to handle her” (77). Also by Irvin she is not so much perceived as a person but rather as a production factor that needs some adjustment. His mind – just like Sturdyvant’s – is fixed on the result, which has to be reached by whichever means. Levee’s lines “Ma’s the boss on the road! We at a recording session. Mr. Sturdyvant and Mr. Irvin say what’s gonna be here” (37) put the mechanisms at work in the recording studio into a nutshell. The ones with power and money take the decisions and tell the others without money, and power what they want them to do. All in all, Mel Sturdyvant and Irvin thus symbolise an aspect of urban life, which is geared at making a quick profit by simultaneously disregarding the individual.

 

But not only white characters show behaviour and attitudes like greed, egotism, venality or others that are predominantly associated with city life. Also, in the black community some of its members, namely Levee and Dussie Mae, embrace the urban ways.

Levee is the talented and ambitious trumpet player of the band who is willing to do anything to get what he wants, namely a career as a renowned trumpet player and bandleader. His belligerent temperament and his quick temper testify to the notion of the city as a place of violence and conflict. Because of his pretentious swagger, egotism, and disrespectful conduct, numerous arguments arise: At first, they are of a verbal then also of a physical nature and at the end the conflict culminates in an act of murder.

When the sandwiches Irvin had ordered for the band arrive, Levee instantly grabs two without wasting a thought on his band colleagues. His justification is plain, simple, and altogether selfish: “’Cause I grabbed them first” (56). The next incident that reveals Levee’s selfishness and his disrespect for others and their feelings are his verbose attempts to score with Dussie Mae even though he knows perfectly well that she is the girlfriend of his boss. Such unsocial behaviour suggests that a dog-eat-dog-mentality or a first-come-first-served-mentality pervades the modern metropolis. In other words, the city is characterised by social Darwinism.

Just like Levee, Dussie Mae does not have any feeling of allegiance or any respect. Dussie Mae’s goals are less ambitious than Levee’s but she is outspoken and straightforward in her demands. Wilson describes her as “a young, dark-skinned woman whose greatest asset is the sensual energy which seems to flow from her” (48). This is a rather devastating statement about a person. All there is to Dussie Mae seems to be her sex appeal and she heavily draws on it in order to get what she wants without lifting a finger. Dussie Mae has turned herself into a commodity. Therefore, her relationships are rather of an economic than emotional nature. Love and affection are just as irrelevant to her choice of a partner as is sexual orientation. The highest bidder will have the privilege to take her home for a trophy as long as he or she can afford her. She is very careful to ensure that delivery is on payment only. She “wants somebody to bring it and put it in [her] hand” (81) and she wants to be sure that she will not hand out sexual favours for free. When Dussie Mae and Levee meet again at the recording studio, Levee starts a second attempt to win her over by raving about his brilliant future as a famous bandleader and by promising her all kinds of presents. The night before Levee had already made some advances but was rejected and Dussie Mae did not even want to talk to him; he would have to “to turn his money green” (22) before that would happen. But now, that she has learned that he knows to write music and thus has a chance for a promising career, she cautiously allows Levee’s advances because she senses that there might be some potential in him and some profit for her. In economic terms, Dussie Mae gives Levee a free sample of what might be in stock for him when she allows him to fondle and kiss her.

Again, also Levee and Dussie Mae show that in the city literally everything can be measured in terms of money, that anything and anyone can be bought as long as an agreement on the price can be reached.

 

3.3             Alienation and Uprootedness

In Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, the city serves as a catch basin for the alienated and uprooted. The city turns out to be a place of twofold alienation for the community of black Americans. Firstly, the city in general is a place of alienation where people live in physical proximity but in spiritual distance next to one another (Simmel 1903: 199) and secondly, the city reinforces the alienation of African Americans from the cultural roots of their ancestors. Consequently, the distance from these ancestors is not just a temporal but also a spatial one from which results the spiritual alienation. The African Americans have been transported from their ancestral home in Africa to the southern USA to work on the plantations as slaves where they found a new home. Later, they have left the rural South, i.e. they severed the ties with this new home in the new world in order to move into the northern cities like New York and Chicago and thus tried to escape racism and discrimination in the South.

 

But as Wilson already writes in the play’s introduction, “the Alabama or Mississippi roots have been strangled by the northern manners” (xvi). Gradually the rural origins of blues and of African Americans have been pushed into the background by the ‘northern manners’ by which I understand manners pertaining to an industrial and capitalist mindset. On the one hand, music that was initially meant to give expression to feelings and provide relief for the black singers and their audiences in the rural South has become commodified and thereby drained of its spiritual content in the urban North.

But on the other hand, the representatives of the old blues – Ma Rainey, Toledo and to some extent Slow Drag – show that the rural traditions have not died yet in the city. The songs performed during the play express what is on the minds of the characters, which is perfectly in line with the blues’ “ability to tell the story of African Americans” (Bogumil 16). When Ma’s feet are sore, she sings to herself:

Oh, Lord, these dogs of mine

They sure do worry me all the time

The reason why I don’t know

Lord, I beg to be excused

I can’t wear me no sharp-toed shoes.

I went for a walk

I stopped to talk

Oh, how my corns did bark.

 

During the first rehearsal, Slow Drag sings Ma Rainey’s part of her song ‘Hear Me Talking to You’ (35):

Rambling man makes no change in me

I’m gonna ramble back to my used-to-be

Ah, you hear me talking to you

I don’t bite my tongue

You wants to be my man

You got to fetch it with you when you come.

The first three of these lines are especially telling and foreshadowing with regard to Ma Rainey’s reaction to Sturdyvant’s and Irvin’s talk about modernising her songs: She outright refuses to have anything altered and sticks to the traditional way of singing it. The last two lines describe Dussie Mae’s attitude towards Levee. She does not want any empty promises but hard facts, which means that Levee has “to turn his money green before he could talk with her” (22).

 

August Wilson himself stated in an interview how important black history and black music are for African Americans to get an understanding of themselves and their present lives. He almost elevates the blues to the status of a religious creed.[3] Considering the task of Christian religion in keeping people grounded and in sustaining their spirits together with Wilson’s notion of the blues as the black man’s surrogate for white Christian religion, the role of music as a means to inspire, form and maintain identity is particularly important with regard to the African American characters in the play. The blues breathes the history and origins of black Americans; “it is the symbol of the autonomous African American culture and history” (Leuchtenmüller 102). Abandoning this music, like Levee does, means to cut the invigorating and consoling link to their own history, thus denying its relevance. Alienation from the African American music, therefore, causes loss of identity.

 

The characters in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom reveal varying degrees of alienation from their spatial as well as spiritual origins. Moreover, there is no clear demarcation line by which the play’s characters could be unambiguously separated into persons of wholly urban or wholly rural alignment. The majority of conflicts between them spring from their differing outlooks on their roles as individuals in contemporary society and their reverence or lack thereof for their cultural roots. In this respect Wilson’s imagery of shoes, symbolising their respective wearers’ chosen walk of life, is important. Levee and Ma but also Toledo represent the two antipodal states of cultural and ancestral awareness.

 

The choice of footwear as a measure for the character’s affiliation with either the urban or the rural environment is especially significant in Ma’s case. In the studio, she “walks about shoeless, singing softly to herself” (73). It is important to note the choice of words in Wilson’s stage direction. There, it distinctly says shoeless instead of barefoot. In view of Toledo and Levee whose respective pairs of shoes symbolise the conflict between rural and urban, Ma Rainey stands out as the one character who has literally the most immediate contact to the ground. This underlines her exceptionally strong spiritual connectedness to the rural South.

Then again, Levee is the one African American character who has the strongest penchant towards the urban way of life. He has swapped his rustic brogans for a shiny new pair of expensive Florsheims. The change of shoes is symbolic for Levee’s direction in life: Together with the old shoes, he also leaves his personal past and his origins behind. Rejecting almost everything that is connected to the South, Levee refuses to accept his roots but embraces the northern urban way of life. What is traditional and old is bad, good is what is new and modern. His aim is to forge a new identity constituted by fame and financial success. “The blues, then, for Levee represents financial gain and personal revenge” (Bogumil 24) for the pain that had been inflicted on him and his family back in the South. He makes fun of the old-fashioned shoes Toledo wears (40).

Their two pairs of shoes and Ma’s show the conflict between the young ambitious generation represented by Levee and the older settled generation represented by Toledo and Ma Rainey. Levee tries to get a foothold in the northern urban centre as an ambitious homo economicus whereas Toledo is still rooted in the rural South feeling the uprootedness of his existence in the city.

“Toledo, the band member with the greatest concern for his African roots and the keenest insight into the power whites exert over blacks, addresses this point to Levee when he refers to blacks “as those left to rediscover their culture, to reclaim their identity after historical disfranchisement in America” (Bogumil 26), namely as history’s ‘leftovers’[4]. In fact, he tries to make the other musicians admit and accept their common heritage but they either get angry or ridicule him[5]. He sees African Americans as leftovers from history and thus pushes the idea of origin and tradition to an extreme – to the very beginning. Black Americans are dislocated Africans and their music is not just from the rural American South but it has initially come from Africa. Music from Africa has, under the conditions of American slavery, first been Americanised and now it becomes urbanised, whitened, and commodified. Toledo complains “we done sold Africa for the price of tomatoes. We done sold ourselves to the white man in order to be like him. […] We done sold who we are in order to become someone else. We’s imitation of white men” (94) and thus testifies to the perception that the modernisation and urbanisation of blues and jazz is a denial of the African ancestry[6]. In assimilating to the white ways, blacks will adopt the values of a culture alien to them, devaluate their own culture and lose themselves (Snodgrass 67). Moreover, Toledo sees the black adaptation to the white capitalist way of life as treason, as the sale of the black people’s soul and spirituality for the comforts of whitened life in an environment reigned by money. And this is exactly what Levee does: He sells his music, his identity for the price of a band of his own and the prospect of becoming rich and famous. Pereira notes, “after emancipation, blacks discovered they had a nebulous social identity – they were neither slaves nor […] free men and women. Rather, […] their social identity had been more defined before emancipation. Now, […] in this so-called free society, they can hold on to nothing that will define them or reassure them […] – nothing except their African roots” (Pereira 31). It is evident, therefore, that not only alienation from the traditional music but even more so the alienation from one’s origins and forefathers causes loss of identity.

3.4             The City as a Godless Place

In this new, alien, and urban world with its great pace and anonymous masses, the values and morals of old are bound to disintegrate (Leuchtenmüller 113f). Upon closer examination of the text, numerous transgressions of the moral Christian code become apparent. In fact, all seven cardinal virtues and the Ten Commandments are ignored; and all seven deadly sins are committed respectively. The microcosm of the Chicago recording studio serves as a representation of the larger macrocosm, which is the city.

 

Lust:

Lust does not only signify an excessive sexual desire or bodily craving but it also comprises the need to be accepted or recognized by others.

 

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom presents three characters guilty of this sin, characters who violate the virtue of purity. Ma Rainey has an extramarital affair with another woman, Dussie Mae who, at the same time, allows Levee’s advances to become physical. Levee’s sexual intentions are obvious; with a metaphor taken from the animal realm he asks Dussie Mae, “can I introduce my red rooster to your brown hen?” (82). Moreover, he has a strong urge to be recognised as a proficient musician and composer.

 

Gluttony:

Generally, gluttony means an excessive desire for food or drink but it may also stand for any kind of consumption going beyond a normal and healthy measure.

 

When the box of sandwiches Irvin has ordered is brought in, Levee instantly rushes to the box and greedily grabs two sandwiches although it should have been clear to everyone that there is one sandwich allotted to each one of the recording artists – including Ma Rainey who is not present yet. After Cutler renounces his sandwich, Levee may even get a third one, which he wants to fetch at once.

Cutler and Slow Drag are guilty of gluttony in a different way. Throughout the play, they both continuously smoke joints and make constant use of Slow Drag’s pint bottle filled with whiskey.

 

Avarice:

Avarice is the excessive desire for material goods, i.e. wealth.

 

Among the play’s characters, Sturdyvant is the one who is the keenest on money. He is “always talking about the cost” (74) and complaining that the last recording he had done did not bring the desired revenue. As has been stated before, penny-pinching Sturdyvant sees people only as production factors and is preoccupied with money.

Also, Dussie Mae has her mind fixed on money. As her body is the only asset she has, she is very careful not to give it away too cheap. Snodgrass claims that Dussie Mae “speaks for the independent black female by refusing sexual favors to a would-be music star who makes empty promises […]” (Snodgrass 80). In my view, she is in no way independent, quite the contrary. What Snodgrass perceives as independence is actually a shamelessness to willingly and purposefully take advantage of others. Dussie Mae, being either too lazy or too unqualified to earn money on her own, wants to make sure that nobody gets anything “for nothing” (81) and looks for a man or woman who will provide for her.

 

Sloth:

Sloth or laziness means that a person shuns any kind of physical or intellectual effort.

 

Although Levee follows his goal of becoming a famous bandleader with ardent zeal, he refuses to busy his mind with any of the philosophical, spiritual or intellectual questions Toledo raises; to him they are just “highfalutin ideas” (42). He is unwilling to even try to understand any of Toledo’s analogies or metaphorical stories.

Again, Dussie Mae keeps Levee company in this sinful ways. Strongly banking on her sex appeal, she does not bother to waste any thought on working for her livelihood. She clearly prefers to be waited on and provided for.

 

Wrath:

Wrath is an inappropriate feeling of hatred and anger. Additionally, it is also the urge to seek revenge outside of justice.

 

Throughout the play, Levee feels picked on by the other band members and reacts with outbursts of violence. At first, the confrontations are of a verbal kind inasmuch as he deliberately insults his colleagues but later he even tries to pick a knife fight with Cutler. Because Levee had to live through some dire hardships in his infancy, namely the rape of his mother and the lynching of his father, he feels that the world owes him something and that it is his right to claim redress for the past grievances. After a series of defeats, (Dussie Mae did not respond to his advances as he had hoped, Sturdyvant refuses to record his songs and Ma fires him) and humiliations, (he loses the spelling bet with Toledo and he gets beaten up by Cutler) Levee is no longer able to contain himself. Toledo has to bear the brunt of his bottled-up anger and is stabbed in the back. Just like Cain, Levee has slain a ‘brother’.

Even the religious and prudent Cutler who usually restores order when conflicts between the band members build up is not able to suppress his anger at one point and punches Levee in the mouth for insulting God.

Envy:

Envy is the feeling of covetousness for things – be they material or immaterial – belonging to somebody else.

 

In the case of Levee, this means that he does not only strive for Ma Rainey’s status but that he also wants to take away her girlfriend. He takes as his idol Ma Rainey (Snodgrass 214) striving to be like her, longing for the same kind of position, fame, and wealth but at Ma’s expense. Levee sees how she bosses around the owner of the recording studio, her manager, and the band which stirs envy in him. Behind Ma’s back, he has changed the arrangement of one of her songs in order to make it appear more modern, thus trying to have his foot in the door with Sturdyvant and thereby he gradually undermines Ma’s position. The cherry on the cake for Levee, a “man what’s gonna get his own band” (81), would be the same kind or even the very same status symbol his model Ma Rainey has; and this is Dussie Mae.

 

Pride:

Pride or its synonyms ‘arrogance’ and ‘vanity’ signify an excessive belief in one’s own person and the desire to present oneself in an unduly favourable light. Pride goes along with contempt for the abilities and merits of others. The person guilty of the sin of pride overestimates and overemphasises his own position thereby diminishing the position of his fellowmen and ultimately that of God.

 

Once again, it is Levee who is the most prominent sinner. Whenever roosters, the animals most widely associated with pride and vanity, are mentioned in the course of the play, it is always in connection with Levee. Because of his unwillingness to rehearse the songs together with the band and his proud swagger, Toledo deliberately likens him to a cock (59). Levee appears as a “strutting, self-adulatory” (Snodgrass 173), and cocky egotist who never misses an opportunity to belittle and insult his fellow musicians or to emphasise his own superior talents. Sentences like “I already know them songs” (59) or “I ain’t like you, Cutler. I got talent!” (26) or “I knows how to play real music … not this old jug-band shit. I got style!” (26) or “But everybody can’t play like I do. Everybody can’t have their own band” (26) clearly show Levee’s hubris.

Ma Rainey also shows behaviour that is informed by pride and a feeling that the musicians owe her allegiance and that Sturdyvant owes her – as his source of income – respect and gratitude. Even before her arrival, Sturdyvant alludes to her proud posture and presumptuous behaviour when he reminds Irvin that he is not willing to concern himself “with any Royal Highness … Queen of the Blues bullshit” (18). When she does finally arrive, Madame Rainey, attired in furs and adorned with jewels, carries herself upright and vain like a queen and enters the recording studio in a “royal fashion” (48). She sees herself in an elevated position above all others and feels fully entitled to lean back while her manager Irvin or the band members wilfully follow her orders. Levee, called “king of the barnyard” (59) by Toledo and Ma, named “Queen of the Blues” by Sturdyvant are thus characterised as persons who unduly want to assume an elevated status by which they belittle their fellowmen and God.

 

By strict exegesis, even more transgressions of Christian norms come to light: Not only the seven cardinal virtues are ignored but also the Ten Commandments are violated in more or less obvious ways. The Ten Commandments and the seven cardinal virtues, which together form the catalogue of Christian norms and moral guidelines for a God-fearing and ethically good life, are constantly under siege and ultimately fall victim to individual selfish ambitions, which hollow the human community of solidarity.

 

I Thou shalt not have no other gods before Me:

In the modern metropolis, money has not only become one of the most coveted goods but it has become an end in itself. As I have mentioned earlier in chapter 3.1, Wilson presents business and religion on a par with one another, thus making Mammon at least equally important and honoured than God.

 

II Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain:

Sturdyvant’s and Irvin’s impious way of speaking often supports the notion of the city as a place of godlessness. Whenever both use the name of Jesus or God, it is always as part of blasphemous swearing (47, 73, 77, 88) violating the Second Commandment. Levee Green, however, pushes blasphemy to an extreme by insulting and taunting God; he is even challenging Him to a fight.

 

III Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work:

Neither Wilson’s introduction nor the stage directions provide any concrete information as far as the day is concerned on which the recording session takes place. Therefore, this item on the list must remain vague.

 

IV Honour thy father and thy mother:

None of the characters actually insults his parents, however, they, with the exception of Toledo, do not have the proper respect with regard to their forefathers. They refuse to accept their African heritage. Cutler says that he “got blues in the church” (83) and Levee wants to forget about his past and the roots of his forbears. All that comes to his mind in connection with the word ‘African’ is running through the jungle with a bone in his nose (32). Although all of Slow Drag’s music betrays innate African rhythms and Slow Drag invokes the good old days he spent with Cutler in the manner of an African religious ceremony in order to get a smoke, he vehemently bursts out: “Nigger, I ain’t no African! I ain’t doing no African nothing” (32). He may use the very same “African conceptualization” (32) in the same way as his forefathers might have done but he does not give them due credit.

 

V Thou shalt not kill:

After much rejection and humiliation, Levee can no longer contain himself and kills another man, Toledo. This is already foreshadowed in a much earlier passage when Cutler asks Levee for the whereabouts of Irvin. Levee responds that he does not know and that he “ain’t none of his keeper” (23). This intertextual reference to the Bible's story of Cain and Abel[7] already alludes to the play’s gruesome ending when Levee stabs his ‘brother’. Moreover, it serves to illustrate the increased alienation of man from his brother in the extended sense of the word in a modern, urbanised environment but also Levee’s unwillingness to assume social responsibility.

VI Thou shalt not commit adultery:

Taking into consideration what the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes as adultery, it becomes evident that someone who is guilty of adultery does not necessarily have to be married[8]. Therefore, two characters in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom are guilty of having committed adultery: Ma Rainey cheats on her husband by having an affair with another woman and Levee tries to take Dussie Mae away from Ma.

 

VII Thou shalt not steal:

Levee is not actually stealing a tangible asset, a piece of property but he appropriates intellectual property – namely Ma’s song ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ – and alters it. Moreover, he is keen on stealing Ma Rainey’s love interest Dussie Mae.

 

VIII Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour:

This commandment does not only prohibit telling untrue things about somebody else but it also demands not to commit any act of untruthfulness neither by deed nor spoken word. Already Wilson’s introduction to the play where he speaks of the moon whose light has been broken into thirty pieces of silver prepares the reader for acts of untruthfulness, which are about to be committed in the course of the unfolding action.

Quite a number of characters do not speak the truth: Sturdyvant has promised Levee to record his songs but breaks his promise. Sylvester blames someone else to have caused the accident with Ma’s car (49) although he himself has run a red light. Irvin’s bribe helps to cover up the true facts of the accident (52). Levee denies that he has ruined the recording of the first song by unintentionally unplugging Sylvester’s microphone (87). Later he denies his flirtatious advances to Dussie Mae but claims that he was only asking her name (89f).

 

IX Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife:

Although Dussie Mae and Ma Rainey are not joined together in the holy sacrament of marriage, they form a couple which is acknowledged by their surroundings. Even Cutler’s warning that Dussie Mae is “Ma’s gal” (89) cannot dampen Levee’s lustful longing for her.

 

X Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbour's; thou shalt not desire thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbour's:

Once again, Levee is the one who is also in this respect the most covetous person among the play’s characters. He does not so much desire to have material things belonging to somebody else but he has his mind enviously fixed on acquiring Ma’s fame, Ma’s status, Ma’s power, and – as has been said before – Ma’s young girlfriend. He looks forward of having his own band just like she has, he dreams of bossing around white music producers and he is excited about boasting with his sexy girl.

Dussie Mae on the other hand does not have any concrete things that she wants but her whole existence is geared at living at the expense of others and thus covets everything that belongs to her current flirtation.

 

Additionally other indicators are found in the play that attest to the city’s moral deficits. Toledo tells the story of a man who has sold his soul to the devil and who had headed North in the end (45). It appears as if it were natural for a man of evil nature to go to the North. By implication, the North is then a malignant cesspool to which evil gravitates. The North as a synonym for the urban environment can therefore only yield badness, moral corruption, and depravity. I have already alluded to the analogy between the exodus of the children of Israel out of the bondage in Egypt where they had a home for hundreds of years with the large-scale migration of southern blacks to the urban centres of the North. But the Biblical account of the exodus also provides for yet another analogy to the fate of modern urban blacks: Once the children of Israel were saved by God from slavery and pursuit, they failed to honour Him and His commandments by worshipping a craven image – the golden calf. Consequently, God denied them settlement in the Promised Land and forced them into homelessness. Similarly, blacks fled from slavery and discrimination in the South to the North, which was held out as their Promised Land (Bogumil 18). They also have neglected God and His commandments and therefore suffer a similar punishment: They do not feel at home in the North; they are without spiritual guidance and are still in the process of discovering who they are and where they are really at home. But faith provides a foothold in life; it fosters the formation of a consciousness of who we are; it aids in constructing an identity. Spurning God, the catalogue of moral norms, and faith will cause spiritual rupture and thus loss of identity.

 

It is unlikely that Wilson has included these numerous allusions to Biblical sins and the violation of the seven cardinal virtues and the Ten Commandments just by accident. Rather, it appears that Wilson has deliberately and consciously used the aforementioned transgressions to characterise the city as a place of godlessness, depravity, and loss of spiritual identity.

 

4.                Conclusion

This paper has shown how the modern metropolis is portrayed in Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and in which respect and to which extent the city exerts an influence on the characters’ identities as human beings in general and as African American musicians in particular. The conflicts arise between Ma Rainey, Toledo and Slow Drag as representatives of the old blues, which is connected to the rural South with its memories of fun, family life, and meaningful occupation[9], and Levee, Sturdyvant and Irvin as the representatives of the new blues, which is connected to the urban North with its anonymity, plutocracy, and godlessness.

In the South, the music of black Americans was initially a way to express their inner life, their unique experiences, their thoughts and feelings. It helped them to cope with the everyday strains and pains of slavery and hard labour in the fields. Southern observes that the slaves in the new world retained music as a communal activity. It “provided some measure of release from the physical and spiritual brutality of slavery” (Southern 21). Thus, it is fit to create an identity as a member of a community.

In the city, however, music is ambivalent. On the one hand, it is a means of mindless entertainment and distraction for masses of anonymous consumers, it has become a background noise to nightlife activities, a “dirty, get-on-down music” (Morrison 74) that seems to lure listeners with the words: “Come and do wrong” (Morrison 86). On the other hand, it is a means to earn money and gain a livelihood. The musicians run the risk of selling the very essence of their music and with it an important part of their own identities.

 

But there are still other factors that may cause ruptures in the fabric of the identities of city dwelling blacks. The city environment itself being characterised by anonymity, the dominance of money, the physical proximity but spiritual distance of its inhabitants, the pervading spirit of social Darwinism, and the constant onslaught of a multitude of different internal and external impressions on the nerves (Simmel, 1903 194) reinforces a feeling of forlornness and uprootedness especially in those who have left their families and friends in the South. Sure enough, all four members of Ma’s backup band are not happy in the city but they have different ways of dealing with the situation. The philosophising Toledo finds sanctuary in books but secretly he thinks about going back to farming in the South. Cutler and Slow Drag seek escape from their situation through numbing their senses by means of a steady drag on their joints and a constant pull on a pint bottle of whiskey and Cutler has turned to religion. Levee wants to forget about his rural past by being stylish and by dreaming of a bright future as a famous bandleader in the city. But all of his attempts at improving his lot are thwarted and all of his modern and urban ideas are ultimately rejected. Neither the attempts at escaping reality through substance abuse and turning to Christian religion are successful nor is Toledo’s awareness about cultural heritage and black history in any way helpful in shaking off the feeling of alienation, disfranchisement, and despair. Consequently, escape from reality is no solution and severing the ties to one’s origins, to one’s ancestors, and to one’s home and culture will at last cause loss of identity.

With regard to moral standards, Wilson draws a rather bleak image of the urban environment. In Wilson’s view, the blues or black music as such is a sacred part of the African American identity. Christianity seems to have failed in strengthening black identity and spirituality (Snodgrass 169). The Christian church has lost Toledo his wife and Levee is convinced that God hates blacks, that He is deliberately ignoring their prayers. For the African American people the blues takes on the same task as Christian religion for whites. When representatives of the traditional blues and of the new urban blues both cherish the music, then it is for different reasons. Levee for instance regards the blues as his ticket to fame, wealth, and self-realisation, whereas Ma Rainey appreciates the blues as an important cultural heirloom that aids in constituting her identity as a black American and that provides solace and spiritual support. Losing faith in the uplifting and identity-inspiring power of the blues will not simply cut a musical bond but also a spiritual one and ultimately lead to desperation and loss of identity.

This paper has shown the crucial link between rural origins and the music of African Americans with regard to their identities. Being at odds with either one will in the end cause spiritual rupture and alienation from both. Embracing the Christian religion, which has been brought to America by whites will not nurture and foster the growth of the black mind and identity, either. Failure to comprehend this will cause the African American individual to lose connection to his spiritual roots and lead to alienation from his own identity as well as from the black community as a whole.

Therefore, the city environment can be identified as the main culprit for alienation and uprootedness. As has become clear in the course of this paper, there are some characters who do have cultural awareness, or respect for their own origins or their music but they still cannot live happily in the North because each one of them lacks at least one piece to the puzzle – their identity. In order to unite or rather reunite all pieces, the ultimate consequence would be the return to the South. Pivotal to the theme of reunion in Wilson’s plays is the underlying premise to which he constantly returns – that the solution for the future lies in the past (Pereira 5).

Yet other aspects could have been worthwhile to discuss in connection with the music of African Americans and the discovery of the value and importance of African American culture but on account of the limited scope of this paper I cannot address their impact on the formation of the Harlem Renaissance, the poetry of Langston Hughes, the writings of Amiri Baraka and Jack Kerouac.

 

 

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