Gem of the Ocean

“I am writing to let you know the times are terrible here, the most anybody remember since bondage. The people are having a hard time with freedom. I can’t hold on here anymore. The white peoples is gone crazy and won’t let anybody leave. They beat one fella on the road so bad his mama say ‘Who is he?’”

This passage showcases racism and the legacy of enslavement. Although free, Black people in the South remain subject to racist laws and are not able to attain economic freedom. These conditions in part led to the Great Migration, a cultural phenomenon that is an important backdrop to many of Wilson’s plays, including Gem of the Ocean.

“I ain’t no robber. You said to come back Tuesday. I can’t wait til Tuesday. I can’t wait. I have to see you now. They say you can help me. They say you wash people’s souls.”

This passage, spoken by Citizen to Aunt Ester, speaks to the theme of Redemption and Spiritual Healing. Citizen, who although he has not yet revealed it, is suffering as a result of having caused Garret Brown’s death. He comes to Aunt Ester for spiritual healing and guidance. Although an individual process, there is a way in which all formerly enslaved Black people grappled with trauma, recovery, and spiritual healing. This theme thus speaks broadly to Black Americans as a whole during the period following the Civil War.

“I lost my Junebug, Mr. Citizen, oh that was a sad time. The darkest day I ever did see was the day I lost my Junebug. You ever looked at a piece of rope, Mr. Citizen? God made that rope. It come right out of the ground. You twist and weave it all together and you get a rope. Rope can help you do a lot of things. You tie it around a bucket and you can get water out of a well. You can tie things together with a piece of rope. God made the rope. It’s men who sometimes get in the way of God’s creation and turns it over to the devil.”

Although she speaks obliquely here, Aunt Ester is describing the lynching of her husband, Junebug. This passage represents the horrific climate of racialized violence that Black people lived in both during and after enslavement. This violence was often state sanctioned, and Gem of the Ocean examines the way that laws of the era were used against Black people. The climate of violence in the South was also one of the driving factors of the Great Migration and was the reason that many people, like the characters in Gem of the Ocean, made their way north during the years following the Civil War.

“Alabama. I only been up here four weeks. When I left Alabama they had all the roads closed. I had to sneak out. Say that they didn’t want anybody to leave. Say that we had to stay there and work.”

This passage speaks to the violent, oppressive conditions that led to the Great Migration. It was not possible for most Black people to find economic success in the South after enslavement. It also depicts how difficult it was for Black people to make their way north: White southerners were not always happy to see Black people, whom they could still exploit, leave the South.

“I was gonna go to another city, but then before I had the chance I killed a man. I don’t know Miss Tyler, I feel I got a hole inside me. People say you can help me. I don’t want to go to hell.”

This passage speaks to the theme of redemption and spiritual healing. Citizen speaks these words to Aunt Ester, setting in motion the process of “soul washing” that allows him to admit his sin and atone for his actions. Through this “soul washing,” Citizen becomes a fully realized member of his community.

“The people think they in freedom. That’s all my daddy talked about. He died and never did have it. I say I got it but what is it? I’m still trying to find out. It ain’t never been nothing but trouble.”

This passage speaks to the way that Gem of the Ocean thematically wrestles with The Nature of Freedom. Although no longer enslaved, many of the characters such as Solly who speaks these lines, continue to struggle. Oppression, violence, and racist laws all prevent Black people from finding peace and success and this play illustrates the way that those in power did everything in their power to make sure that freedom remained difficult for the formerly enslaved.

“If you stay around here, stay out of trouble. My name’s Caesar. I’m the boss man around here. What’s your name?”

This passage speaks to Caesar’s characterization. Although Black, he is the embodiment of Racism and the Law because he enforces laws that, although legal, are not ethical. He aids and abets white oppressors and in so doing harms members of his own community.

“I’d say I didn’t do it too if the law was after me. You arrest somebody for loitering and they’ll swear they ain’t standing there. That don’t mean nothing to me that he say he didn’t do it. I had witnesses. Five hundred people standing around watching the man drown. I tried to break it up, get them to go home. But they want to stand around and watch a damn fool drown himself in the river. I tried to save him, but he ain’t had enough sense to save himself. People want to blame me, but I got to keep order.”

This passage further illustrates Caesar’s characterization. In it he utters a version of the infamous “I was just following orders” defense that is oft associated with individuals who enforce racist, oppressive, and even genocidal laws. To Caesar, because his actions are legal, they are just. Wilson asks his readers to consider the opposite: that just because an action is legal, that doesn’t make it ethical.

“Leroy. And John. And Cujoe. And Sam. And Robert. One after the other they come and they go. You can’t hold on to none of them. They slip right through your hands. They use you up and you can’t hold them. They all the time taking till it’s gone. They ain’t tried to put nothing to it. They ain’t got nothing in their hand. They ain’t got nothing to add to it. They too busy taking. They taking cause they need. You can’t blame them for that. They so full of their needs they can’t see you. Now here you come. You don’t even know what you need. All you see is a woman. You can’t see nothing else. You can’t think nothing else. That blinds you.”

This passage, spoken by Black Mary, adds to her characterization. She has seen many men come and go, none of whom had her best interests at heart or had much interest in staying with her. Part of Black Mary’s arc within Gem of the Ocean is her relationship with Citizen: After Citizen “gets right” with himself and helps to rescue Solly’s sister, he and Black Mary plan to get together. In their relationship, both characters experience healing and find a more solid place in their community.

“You think you supposed to know everything. Life is a mystery. Don’t you know life is a mystery? I see you still trying to figure it out. It ain’t all for you to know. It’s all an adventure. That’s all life is. But you got to trust the adventure. I’m on an adventure. I been on one since I was nine years old. That’s how old I was when my mama sent me to live with Miss Tyler. Miss Tyler gave me her name. Ester Tyler. I don’t tell nobody what I was called before that. The only one knew that is my mama. I stayed right on there with her til she died. Miss Tyler passed it on to me. If you ever make up your mind, I’m gonna pass it on to you. People say it’s too much to carry. But I told myself somebody’s got to carry it.”

This passage speaks to Aunt Ester’s characterization. It shows the wisdom that she possesses as one of the neighborhood’s matriarchs and her active role as spiritual leader within her community. It also provides a piece of her back story, and details the difficulties that she faced during her years of enslavement.

“I stole a bucket of nails. The mill wouldn’t pay me so I stole a bucket of nails. They say Garret Brown stole it he ran jumped in the river. I told myself to tell them I did it, but every time I started to tell them something got in my way. I thought he was gonna come out the water but he never did. I looked up and he had drowned. It’s like I got a hole inside me. If I ain’t careful, seem everything would leak out that hole. What to do, Miss Tyler?”

This passage details the source of Citizen’s spiritual wounds. Here, he admits that although he knew he should confess to his crime, he found himself unable to do so and was ultimately surprised at Garret Brown’s suicide. He doesn’t have a name for his hurt, calling it instead “a hole.” Here, he asks Aunt Ester for help, setting the wheels in motion for a spiritual journey that will return him to his community.

“The people will come and tell you anything. They got all kinds of problems. They tell you this and they tell you that. You’ll come to find out most of the time they looking for love. Love will go a long way towards making you right with yourself. They looking for love and don’t know what it is. If you tell them, they still don’t know. You got to show them how to find it for themselves.”

Here, Aunt Ester reveals that much of her work is merely showing people how to find love, which in this case means not only romantic love, but love of community. Citizen’s spiritual healing will reveal him to himself as part of a community, and at that point he will feel whole again.

“What do we need them for? One man say they ought to send them back down South. I come on past the general store in Rankin and they was talkin about ‘Why can’t we have slavery again?’ One man said cause of the law. And somebody said change the law. ‘Would you fight another war?’ ‘Hell yeah.’ I was surprised he said that but then I wasn’t too surprised. They talking about bringing in the army if the police can’t handle it.”

Selig speaks these lines. They illustrate the difficult climate that formerly enslaved people found themselves in after emancipation. Although ostensibly free, they were treated with hostility by many white people in both the South and the North, and because of these cruel conditions, they struggled.

“Some people don’t like adventure, Mr. Citizen. They stay home. Like me. I done seen all the adventure I want to see. I been across the water. I seen both sides of it. The water has its secrets the way the land has its secrets.”

This passage adds to Aunt Ester’s characterization. Here, she is instructing Citizen in the ways of spiritual cleansing. She speaks of her own figurative journeys in her role as guide and indicates her advanced age to the reader. Aunt Ester’s age means that she has seen the entire history of Black people in the United States. She is a reservoir of spiritual and cultural knowledge.

“Take a look at this map, Mr. Citizen. See that right there…That’s a city. It’s made of bones, pearly white bones. All the buildings and everything inside is made of bones. I seen it. I been there, Mr. Citizen. My mother lives there.”

This passage details one of the play’s primary symbols, The City of Bones. It is where Citizen will journey on his quest for redemption and spiritual cleansing. It is in the City of Bones that he will have the opportunity to apologize to Garret Brown and rejoin his community in a spirit of truth and reconciliation.

“That’s not what you call your ordinary boat. Look at that boat, Mr. Citizen. That’s a magic boat. There’s a lot of power in that boat.”

This passage, which describes the boat that Aunt Ester has fashioned out of her bill of sale, showcases magical realism within the play. Although the boat is not a literal object, it will be used to help Citizen attain redemption. In this way, magical objects and events help propel the action of the narrative.

“That’s my good luck piece. That piece of chain used to be around my ankle. They tried to chain me down, but I beat them on that one. I say I’m gonna keep this to remember by. I been lucky ever since.”

The Chain is a key symbol within the play. It represents the strength and resiliency of the formerly enslaved, for it was not able to hold Solly captive. He escaped, and was free.

“I joined the Underground Railroad. Look at that, that’s 62 notches. That’s 62 people I carried to freedom. I was looking to make it 63 when Abraham Lincoln come along and changed all that. Him and General Grant. I never did join the Union Army, but I showed them where to go.”

This passage adds to Solly’s characterization. In it, he details his work with the Underground Railroad, on which he was a conductor who helped guide Black people north to freedom.

“They got some good white people down here, but they got to fight the law. In Canada they ain’t got to fight the law. Down here it’s a war.”

This passage engaged with the theme of racism and the law. It details the way that in the United States, the law itself is racist. Even if well intentioned white people want to help Black people, the law is on the side of oppression and segregation.

“God don’t answer to no one man. God answers to the all. All the people.”

This passage highlights the importance of the collective. It illustrates the theme of The Strength of Black Community. In it, Aunt Ester gestures toward the idea that Black people are stronger together, and must see themselves as pieces of a whole, rather than as unconnected individuals.

“You got to tell him, Mr. Citizen, otherwise you’ll never be right with yourself.”

This scene is where Citizen is reborn. It is the moment of spiritual redemption which allows him to be absolved of his role in Garret Brown’s death. In this passage, Aunt Ester urges Citizen to tell the truth in order to live in integrity as part of a respectful community.

“Yeah. I burned it down! The people might get mad, but freedom got a high price. You got to pay. No matter what it cost. You got to pay. I didn’t mind settling up the difference after the war. But I didn’t know it was gonna like this.”

In this passage, Solly freely admits to having burned down the tin mill. The mill owners had oppressed their workers, creating conditions that were akin to enslavement. These working conditions were morally wrong, and so Solly lit the fire.

“Then how much you think your paper’s worth? You see Mr. Caesar you can put the law on the paper, but that don’t make it right.”

This passage illustrates the theme of racism and the law. In it, Aunt Ester describes her bill of sale to Caesar, noting that even though it had been a legal document, it was morally wrong. Enslavement and other racist laws, although state-sanctioned, are none the less unethical.