Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Emperor Jones was a tragic play by Eugene O’Neill that was first performed in 1920. It was the first massive hit by Eugene O’Neill, partially based on the brief, corrupt, and brutal presidency of Haiti’s Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, who was murdered by Haitians on July 28, 1915. The play is a brilliant experimental work of Eugene O’Neill in which he mixed expressionism with realism to invoke a proper amount of emotions in the audience.
Characters: Brutus Jones was a train porter in the United States. Once, during a game of dice, he kills a man and is sent to life imprisonment. He then kills a prison guard and runs away from America as a stowaway on a ship going to West Indies. He reaches an unidentified island where he impresses the gullible native people and gradually exploits them. The native people gather and try to kill them but fail as he dodges the bullet and makes the native people believe that he cannot be killed by lead bullets and only a silver bullet can kill him. He then becomes the uncrowned ruler of the island and starts exploiting the people ruthlessly. Smithers is an evil man who is always on the side of one with power. He pretends to be a good friend of Jones but has veiled malice against him. He is a profound racist white Cockney trader. He warns Jones of the revolution against him. Lem was the leader of the native people before Jones arrived. He tried to kill Jones with a bullet, but Jones somehow remained unscathed. To kill Jones, he melts some coins to make silver bullets to kill the brutal despot. There is an old native woman who informs Smithers about a rebellion against Jones as he arrives on the island at the beginning of the play. The witch doctor is a figment of Jones' imagination during his weird hallucinatory experience when he tries to save himself against the rebellion by running away to the jungle. The witch doctor is a spiritual shaman, an image of Africa trying to sacrifice Jones to a god-like crocodile. Brutus Jones uses his silver bullet to kill the crocodile, his imagination representing himself. As the crocodile dies, he realizes he is mortal and subject to harm and death.
Summary of The Emperor Jones:
Smithers, a Cockney trader arrives at an unidentified island in the West Indies and goes to meet the Emperor of the Island at his palace. It is a dark night. He observes that all the servants and workers have left the palace. As he searches more, he sees an old native woman. He asks where has everyone gone? She says that a rebellion is arising and all the servants have joined hands with the natives who are planning to kill the Emperor. The Emperor is Brutus Jones a fugitive from America.
Smithers is worried, Emperor Jones is one of his friends and a profitable business partner. He goes to his bed chamber. As Emperor Jones wakes up, Smithers informs him about the rebellion and warns him that he can be killed. He suggests that the emperor should run away through the jungle but says that it can be very dangerous. However, Jones isn’t worried about the insurrection. He does not believe that his illiterate, superstitious subjects can outsmart him. He has deceived them to believe that no lead bullet can kill him. They believe that only a silver bullet can kill the Emperor but the only silver bullet on the island is with Emperor Jones. He still confesses to Smithers that he knew this day would come when people will revolt against him as he has been stealing from the people of the island and amassing a huge fortune in a foreign bank account.
Jones observes that none of his servants is with him. He hears the beating of drums from afar. He decides that he will run away through the jungle and go to a foreign land to enjoy his fortune. As he enters in the dark forest, his worries get over him and he starts hallucinating, seeing figures in thin air. However, he is convinced that the native people cannot acquire a silver bullet to kill him. Lem, the leader of the rebels once tried to kill Jones but he dodged the bullet and established that no lead bullet can kill him.
Emperor Jones continues to go deep into the dark jungle so that he may reach the shore from another side. Gradually, his hallucinations get intense. He has a loaded gun with five lead bullets and a silver bullet. He sees his innermost fears, his crimes from the past, one by one as his hallucinations get stronger. He begins a monologue as if the figures he sees in his hallucination are real. The first figure that appears is of the person that he killed during the game of dice. As he laughs at Jones, Jones fires a bullet at the figure and it vanishes. The sound of bullets reaches the ears of rebellions and they follow it. The sound of beating drums intensifies a bit so do the heartbeats of Jones.
The second figure that emerges out of his hallucinations is that of the prison guard trying to catch him and throw him back into the prison. As the figure charges toward Jones, he uses the second bullet at the figure and it vanishes. The sound of fire echoes in the jungle and the drum beats intensify. Jones is forced to go deeper into the dark jungle.
His hallucinations then take him deeper into his subconscious and he sees a slave market. He sees himself being auctioned in the slave market and as he is about to be auctioned, he uses his third bullet and the resounding noise allows rebellions to know where he is. Meanwhile, Jones continues his monologue, describing all his past life crimes and experiences. He then sees a slave ship taking slaves from African shores. He is forced to use his fourth bullet. The sound of the drum continues to intensify.
As he reaches further deep into the jungle near a stream, he sees a figure of a witch doctor trying to force him towards a huge threatening crocodile sitting near the river with his mouth wide open. The crocodile is willing to eat jones while the witch hunter is trying to offer Jones as a sacrifice to the god-like crocodile. Jones gets frightened. He uses his fourth bullet on the witch doctor who escapes. Now his pistol contains the last silver bullet. As the crocodile charges towards him with its open mouth, Jones shoots at the crocodile with the last remaining silver bullet. Darkness intensifies and so does the ear-tearing sound of drum beatings.
Smithers meets Lem, the leader of the rebels. Lem proudly informs him that they have killed Jones. He informs Smithers that the revolutionaries melted down silver coins to make silver bullets to kill Emperor Jones and the play ends.
The play uses many symbols signifying the changes in the fate of Jones. The most important is his uniform as the Emperor. When Brutus Jones first appears as the Emperor of the island, he is wearing an impressive uniform with lots of medals, brass buttons, and gold chevrons and braids. As he tries to run away from the rebels in the jungle and faces his past demons, his medals and braids and everything precious continues to fall away from him until there is nothing left. His uniform becomes a symbol of his fall from power. Similarly, the silver bullet that Jones carries is a symbol of his hubris, his false ego, and his fake importance. The silver bullet signifies his power over the innocent native people of the island. Jones cleverly creates a myth that he cannot be harmed by a lead bullet. The poor native people cannot think of getting a silver bullet to kill him. As he holds the silver bullet himself, he is convinced that he cannot be harmed. But when he is forced to use it on the crocodile of his imagination, he loses that silver bullet and it signifies the end of his hubris. He always knew that one day he would have to face rebellion. He had saved that silver bullet to use on himself. The crocodile signifies himself, a false god that can be taken down by a single bullet. The dark jungle signifies his own mind filled with his consciousness, confessions, and memories of his past criminal life. The beating sound of drums signifies to Jones that the rebels are reaching near to hunt him down. As the sound of drums intensifies, so does the rate of his heart beats.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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