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Black Sex and Violence in LeRoi Jones' The Toilet

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2006, 19(1), pp.53-76
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

Kang Kim 1

1호남대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Kim, KangThe black writers who came after Lorraine Hansberry were increasingly concerned with the injustices of a white-dominated society. Among the most important was LeRoi Jones, not only because he was one of the best dramatists of the 1960s but because he represents the trend away from concern with integration to a demand for complete separation. The Toilet is a good example of his early work. It shows a white boy being beaten unmercifully because he allegedly has been attracted to a black boy. Jones uses homosexuality and violence to symbolize the kind of barriers society has erected to make it shameful for races to admit mutual love and respect. Race is barely mentioned in the play, though the victim is cast as white and the gang members as black, but this is clearly an allegory of race relations. There may be isolated individuals in any group who are capable of amity, Jones admits, but the social roles imposed on them will force them to act as enemies, whatever they feel. In the Toilet Jones hints at the possibility of black and white coming together at some future after the blackman has earned his manhood and self-respect by defeating the white.

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