Helen Holtom:
Doing away with weak western forms:
the search for a black cultural identity in Amiri Baraka's The Dutchman.
We need magic
now we need the spells, to rise up
return, destroy, and create. What will be
the sacred words?
(Jones LeRoi, Black Arts, 'Ka'Ba', New Jersey: Jihad Productions, 1966)
The American dream is often associated as a white western entity, but there are many layers to American society, most of which do not conform to the 'dream' status, but a darker strata of society ensconced with the 'other'. The Afro-American poet, play-write and polemic Amiri Baraka explores an often hidden aspect of American society, delving where other artists fear to tread into a darker underworld, taut with racism and the fight for survival. Baraka sought to create a new form of literature that captured the black experience and at the core of his work is his search for a black cultural identity. I will explore the ways that this identity manifests itself in his play The Dutchman (1964) and how Baraka's use of the word reflects a reassessment of the significance of black cultural identity in western society.
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