A Soldier’s Play (Masterplots II: Drama, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Charles Fuller
- First Published: 1981
- Type of Plot: Mystery and detective
- Time of Work: 1944
- Setting: Fort Neal, Louisiana
- Principal Characters: Tech/Sergeant Vernon C. Waters, Captain Charles Taylor, Corporal Bernard Cobb, Private First Class Melvin Peterson, Corporal Ellis, Private Louis Henson, Private James Wilkie, Private Tony Smalls, Captain Richard Davenport, Private C. J. Memphis, Lieutenant Byrd, Captain Wilcox
- Genres: Social realism, Drama, Mystery and detective drama, War drama
- Subjects: African Americans, Racism, Suicide, Murder or homicide, South or Southerners, 1940’s, Detectives, Liberalism, Military life or service, Soldiers, Baseball, Work or workers
- Locales: Fort Neal, LA
The Play
The first act opens on a darkened stage with the murder of Sergeant Waters by a mysterious man holding a .45-caliber pistol. Drunk and trying to stand, Waters is mumbling “They’ll still hate you! They still hate you. . . !” when he is shot twice. His last words are symbolic of the play’s theme of the effects of the institutional racism rampant in the United States Army in the 1940’s and the self-hatred it often created in people living under its oppression.
The scene immediately shifts to the Company B barracks, where five African American enlisted men...
[The entire page is 2645 words long]
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