Dec 31, 2009
The Emperor Jones | The Emperor Jones
At a glance:
- Author: Eugene O’Neill
- First Published: 1921
- Type of Work: Drama
- Type of Plot: Expressionism
- Time of Work: Early twentieth century
- Genres: Drama, Melodrama, Expressionist literature, Symbolist literature
- Subjects: 1960’s, Mothers, Parents and children, Caribbean, Magic or magicians, Blacks, Race, Twentieth century, Religion, Emotions, Fear, Islands, Death or dying, Jungles or rain forests, Adventure, Rites or ceremonies, Intellect, Cannibalism, Tyrants or tyranny
- Locales: West Indies, Islands
Places Discussed
Island. The play unfolds on a small, unnamed island in the West Indies that provides
O’Neill with an appropriate microcosm for his drama that depicts the primitive forces that
close in on a domesticated, avaricious African American. The island bears a loose resemblance
to the West Indian nation of Haiti, which had a long and chaotic political history after black slaves
wrenched control of the western end of Hispaniola away from France in the early nineteenth
century. Like O’Neill’s Brutus Jones, Haiti’s first rulers styled themselves...
[The entire page is 851 words long]
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