The Negotiation of Power - the Escape; Or, a Leap for Freedom by William Wells Brown

The Negotiation of Power

Introduction

Since its inception, the African American theatre has always been deliberate in highlighting the plight of African Americans throughout history. In their various compositions, creators of plays and other works of drama ensured that their creations met this crucial element. One of the common themes in majority of plays that premiered in the African American theatre was power dynamics, where plays took great care to highlight how the powerful exercised power over those lacked influence. This was done in various ways, the commonest of which were through slavery and racism. In this regard, this paper will examine the subject of how power was negotiated while drawing on illustrations from three plays. Effort will be made to explore in what ways power dynamics compare and contrast in the different plays.

Discussion

The Escape; or, a Leap for Freedom by William Wells Brown

In this play, Brown tells the story of the 19th Century power dynamics of slavery, revealing how power was negotiated, not in subtle ways, but through the physical brutality of slavery. Slave owners had complete power over their slaves; they could buy and sell them at will without facing any legal consequences. The fact that a slave owner could trade slaves in open without any consequences demonstrates the untouchable power of slave owners. When a human being can be traded like a commodity in the open market, the dynamics of power and influence are clear; the trader has the ultimate say while those being traded are at the mercy of their dealers.

The fact that Melinda has to marry Glen in secrecy is itself an illustration of how powerless the two slaves were before the eyes of their masters. Under normal circumstances, people need not hide the fact that they love one another. However, a slave was the property of their owner. They were never free to make they own decisions. Freedom was alien to them because the purpose of their existence was to serve their master, nothing else. Through the lives of both Melinda and Glen, Brown paints the picture of people who are totally controlled and contained, forbidden from expression preferences and feelings, even when it comes to choosing who to love and marry.

Power dynamics are laid bare not only in the ways that slaves are aware of their own powerlessness, but in the way slave owners rub that reality in their faces. When Melinda threatens to expose Dr. Gaines secret marriage, he warns that he could kill her if she dared; clearly reminding her that she was dispensable (Brown, 2010). He proceeds to lock her in a cabin in the farm property. Melinda’s horror does not end there. Her feelings of powerlessness are heightened when Mrs. Gaines tries to force her to take poison so that she kills herself. Slave masters were powerful people, so powerful that they could determine when a slave lives and dies. They also did not hesitate to show their power. As if the power to buy and sell slaves was not enough, they could dispose them at will.

Sometimes slaves managed to win back their power and freedom. This meant that they could have some relative amount of power to live a free life. However, this power was limited for two reasons. Firstly, it did not offer retribution since slaves could not effect punishment for their former slave owners. Secondly, once free from slavery, slaves would have to struggle with the problem of racism. However and to be fair enough – like will be observed later in this paper – racism was lesser a problem than slavery. In both absolute and relative terms, racist had lesser power than slave owners. This therefore means that being free from slavery amounted to getting some power back for those that had been enslaved. This is the feeling that both Melinda and Glen get as they escape to Canada to enjoy their freedom.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wilson

In this play, the theme of racism is explored to great detail. From the play, it becomes clear why racism persisted in the 1980s American society: those who practiced it enjoyed a feeling of power and succeeded in making black people feel inferior. Making people feel inferior is strategic, because it renders them easy to manipulate, exploit, deceive and even oppress. It has been argued that people will do anything to feel powerful because the feeling of having no power – real or perceived – is unbearable to all human beings. Racism was therefore a means of exercising power over the extended black community. It was a powerful tool in negotiating for power and exerting influence over the extended black population.

Even before Ma’s grand entrance, Cutler, Toledo and Levee are in a heated argument that proves to be racially biased, with Levee being the most provocative of them all, because he dreams of forming his own band, hence invokes the racial argument as a way to prove his superiority – which he considers necessary if he is to develop the following of a band leader. In his mind, Levee feels powerful by the virtue of being racist. Levee is not as powerful as Dr. Gaines, the slave master, as seen in the analysis of The Escape above. Nevertheless, he is powerful enough to offend the black members of the band. At the beginning of Act 2, Ma’s idea that her nephew Sylvester does the introduction to “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” causes much disagreement within the team (Wilson, 2007). However, she insists that this must happen. By doing this, Ma is subtly waging a war against racism. She was obviously aware that her more polished band members could introduce the tune well, but she felt it her duty to empower black people by giving them a voice in her band.

Here, we see moves and counter moves regarding the subject of racism. In Act 1, the band members spend most of their time shouting against one another in the most racially charged manner. However, before the recording, Ma wants to set the record straight. Even before giving speeches on the discrimination and mistreatment of black people, she sets the stage for an anti-racism campaign by having Sylvester introduce her song. By having Sylvester do the introduction for her song, Ma succeeds in winning back some of the power that Levee had gathered by acting racist. This was in fact a counter move against Levee who would not imagine a black person doing the introductory tune to Ma’s performance. Power breeds jealously and those with it always want to exclude those without. This feeling can be observed from Levee’s reaction. Feeling that Ma had eroded the power he had gathered for himself from his racist arguments, Levee goes into tantrums, getting angry over seemingly trivial issues. Ma had played Levee’s card against him, demonstrating to the audience how to win back power from anyone, after it has been taken away.