The River Niger (Criticism)

Criticism

Liz Brent

Brent has a Ph.D. in American Culture, specializing in film studies, from the University of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses in the history of American cinema. In the following essay, Brent discusses references to cultural and historical figures in Walker’s play.

The dialogue in Joseph A. Walker’s play The River Niger makes reference to a wide array of historical and cultural figures, both real and fictional. These references include the Shakespearean character Shy-lock, the African folktale figure Brer Rabbit, the blues great Lightnin’ Hopkins, the comic book superhero Superman, the biblical King Solomon, Hollywood movie star Gary Cooper, and the notorious French writer the Marquis de Sade. A brief explanation of who each of these figures is, and the significance of each one to the meaning of Walker’s play, will enhance the reader’s appreciation of this dramatic work.

In act 1, John Williams and Dr. Dudley return to the Williams’s house, drunk from an evening spent at the local bar. As is characteristic of their friendship, the two banter rather ruthlessly. When Dudley asks John for a drink “for the road,” he replies,“One for the road! Why didn’t you buy one for the road before we hit the road? Shylock stingy bastard.” This comment refers to the character Shylock from Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice. Shylock is a Jewish lender who insists on extracting “a pound of flesh” from a man who has not repaid his loan on time. “Shylock” has thus come into common usage to refer to a greedy, stingy creditor who uses extortion to collect his debts.

Shylock has become a controversial character among literary scholars, because, on one hand, he represents a common anti-Semitic stereotype of Jewish people as ruthlessly stingy and greedy, especially in matters of money-lending. Others, however, interpret Shylock as a spokesperson against society’s unfair mistreatment of Jews; this interpretation is based on his famous speech to this effect, which begins, “Hath not a Jew eyes?”

In Walker’s play, John calls Dudley “Shylock” to indicate that he was stingy in not buying his own last drink while still at the bar. Throughout their banter, John has referred to Dudley as a “Jew.” It is not clear if his character may in fact be part Jewish; rather, it seems that John is referring to Dudley, a successful African-American doctor, as a “Jew” to insult him. To further the comparison to Shylock, Dudley has recently lent a large sum of money to John to pay his rent. John is thus implying that for Dudley to request a drink from him is equivalent to Shylock demanding “a pound of flesh” from the man to whom he has lent money.

Walker’s repeated use of phrases such as “Godd — n black Jew doctor” in John’s dialogue, and the reference to Shylock, seem to be anti-Semitic in their implications.

In the beginning of act 2, John stops mopping the kitchen floor to sit down and work on the poem he is writing. Dudley, his friend and drinking buddy, stops by, and John tells him he’s “just in time” to take off for the local bar. John says jokingly, “Do you know that, I — me — Lightnin’ John Williams — more powerful than a speeding locomotive — do you realize that I have mopped this entire house by myself?” This line includes references to two figures in American cultural history. The first is the great blues musician Lightnin’ Hopkins. John is comparing himself to a great African-American blues artist because he has just been working on his own artistic creation — a poem — and is feeling proud of what he’s written so far. At the same time, John is being silly by comparing the work of a great musician to the accomplishment of having mopped the floor of a house. Likewise, his use of the phrase “more powerful than a speeding locomotive” refers to the introductory lines of a Superman comic book story. Again, John is describing the accomplishment of his domestic chores, traditionally considered to be women’s work, with a legendary image of pure, unchecked, masculine strength and power. This indirect reference is significant to a central theme of Walker’s play, which is about African-American men feeling disempowered and emasculated by racial and economic oppression. By referring jokingly to the powers of Superman, John is expressing his feelings of comparative powerless-ness and emasculation.

In the beginning of act 2, John plans to sneak out of the house without his wife’s knowing in order to escape his housecleaning responsibilities and go out drinking with his friend Dudley. Dudley chides him for “always sneaking around like Brer Rabbit” instead of acting like an “African warrior” and asserting himself with his wife.

Brer Rabbit is a figure from African folktales which were transported to African American and then American culture with the slave trade. Brer Rabbit appears in a cycle of tales which fall into the culturally widespread category of the “trickster” figure. The “trickster” is a character, often an animal, who is able to beat out more powerful opponents through his cleverness; Brer Rabbit, for instance, outsmarts characters such as Brer Bear, Brer Fox, and Brer Wolf.

Brer Rabbit became well-known throughout American culture with the publication of “Uncle Remus” stories by the white writer Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) in the book Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880). Harris collected tales of Brer Rabbit from the oral culture of African-American plantation slaves and published them as a series of stories told by his fictional character Uncle Remus, an elderly African-American slave.

In Walker’s play, Dudley’s mention of Brer Rabbit is first of all a reference to the survival of African cultural roots from the days of slavery to contemporary African-American culture. Second, Dudley is suggesting that John is like Brer Rabbit, using cleverness to outsmart his wife, who is more powerful than he. Dudley contrasts such a trickster figure with the image of an “African warrior,” thus making clear to John the extent to which he is disempowered and emasculated in his own home and family. One of Walker’s primary concerns in this play is African-American men feeling disempowered and emasculated by white American society, as well as by the women in their own homes.

In act 2, two of the members of Mo’s revolutionary organization, Skeeter and Al, argue to the point where they find themselves holding each other at gunpoint. The stage notes indicate that, “In furious desperation, Skeeter suddenly reaches inside his coat, but Al is too quick. At about the same time, they both produce their revolvers.” As they face each other, Al says to Skeeter, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking a sissy can’t play that Gary Cooper s — t if he want to.” This line refers to the extremely popular classic Hollywood movie star Gary Cooper (1901-1961), who played the leading man in many films throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, often as the hero in Westerns. He is perhaps most famous for his Academy Award-winning

role in the Western High Noon (1952), which ends with one of the most famous shoot-out scenes in movie history.

In Walker’s play, Al is referring to the ability of Cooper’s Western characters to be fast-on-the-draw, as he manages to outdraw Skeeter. Furthermore, Al refers to himself as a “sissy,” because he is a homosexual; in referring to Gary Cooper, Al is indicating that, although homosexuals are stereotyped as un-masculine, or “sissies,” he himself can be compared to an icon of American masculinity and heroism.

In act 2, during a confrontation with Mo and his fellow “revolutionary” men, Jeff angrily refers to Chips as “Marquis de Sade.” The notorious Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) was a French writer and eccentric from whose name the term “sadism” was derived. Throughout his life, de Sade was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for kidnapping prostitutes and subjecting them to sexual tortures. During the 1780s, de Sade wrote and published several novels describing such sexual transgressions, the most well-known of which are Justine and One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom. Although officially banned in France, de Sade’s writings became popular among artists and intellectuals during the nineteenth century, and today he is considered by some to have made a significant contribution to French literature.

In Walker’s play, Jeff refers to Al as the “Marquis de Sade,” because Al has just threatened to rape Ann at gunpoint and has repeatedly boasted of having had sex with a corpse. Unlike the cultural references discussed above, this one is not clearly associated with central themes of the play. However, since Al turns out to be the villain who betrays his fellow “revolutionaries” to the police, this reference works to establish him as a moral degenerate lacking in human compassion.

In act 2, Mattie explains to Ann the extent to which her husband John, although now an alcoholic, was once extremely smart and studious. She tells Ann that his fellow college students “used to call him Solomon,” and that “some of his bummified wino friends still call him that. . . . Solomon!” Mattie is referring to King Solomon, who is legendarily the greatest king of ancient Israel.

Almost all historical knowledge of King Solomon and his reign is derived from biblical sources. Among Solomon’s most noteworthy accomplishments was the great Temple of Jerusalem. In addition, Solomon is legendary for his wisdom and for his poetry as recorded in the biblical “Song of Solomon.”

In Walker’s play, the association of John Williams with Solomon is due both to his wisdom and to his skills and accomplishments as a poet. John is a talented poet whose greatest accomplishment is his poem “The River Niger,” which he recites to his wife shortly before his death.

Throughout the play, John’s decline as a man is indicated by various actions, characterizations, and comments. His association with the astoundingly accomplished King Solomon suggests that John’s potential as a poet and wise, learned man was never realized due to oppressive conditions of racism and poverty.

Walker’s play includes a rich variety of references to cultural and historical figures, each of which adds depth and dimension to central themes of African-American cultural identity, black masculinity, and the effects of racism and poverty on the African-American family.

Source: Liz Brent, in an essay for Drama for Students, Gale Group, 2001.

What Do I Read Next?

• Black Drama Anthology (1972), edited by Woodie King and Ron Milner. This anthology is a collection of plays by African-American writers, including Ododo (1970) by Joseph A. Walker.
• The Best Plays of 1967-1968 (1968), edited by Otis L. Guernsey. This collection includes The Believers, a play by Joseph A. Walker and Josephine Jackson.
• The Slave Ship (1964), by Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones. Baraka’s play is an early experimental play about racial oppression in America, written by a leading writer in the Black Arts Movement. The play takes place during three periods of African-American history.
• Black Drama in America: An Anthology (1994), edited and with an introduction by Darwin T. Turner. This collection of plays by African-American authors includes Langston Hughes, Imamu Amiri Baraka, and August Wilson.
• They Had a Dream: The Civil Rights Struggle, from Frederick Douglass to Marcus Garvey to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X (1993), by Jules Archer. This text provides a history of some of the most influential figures in the struggle for racial equality in America.
• The Amen Corner, by James Baldwin (1968). The Amen Corner is the first play by the leading African-American writer James Baldwin. Baldwin’s play focuses on the theme of the struggles of black men in the African-American family.