1. Literary Analysis: Dutchman By: Vivek Shenoy

2. Thesis The relationship between the story of the Flying Dutchman and the play, “Dutchman”, is one of confronting temptation and enduring punishment because of this confrontation.

3. Similarities between Legend of The Flying Dutchman and Amiri Baraka’s “Dutchman” play In the description of the Legend of The Flying Dutchman by James Donahue, the story (of a phantom ship sailing at the southern tip of Africa) is told to have originated when a Captain Hendrick Vanderdecken sailed through a storm, despite seeing the warning sings, and ends up with his life, crewmates’ life, and the ship, perishing in the waters. – perdurabo10.tripod.com/ships/id19.html As a result of their deaths and the ships sinking due to the Captain’s foolishness, it is said that the punishment for the Captain’s foolishness is for he and his ship to battle storms when sailing at the Cape forever- an irreversible punishment- perdurabo10.tripod.com/ships/id19.html In “Dutchman”, this story of punishment for someone standing up to something that seems to be challenging them plays out: Clay, a twenty year old black man, is challenged by Lula, a thirty year old white woman, into reacting and defending his ancestors story of slavery, emancipation, and struggle to assimilate into American society.

4. Lula and Clay Dialogue At first Lula is playful around Clay, making conversation with him about how she saw him staring at her while she decided to reciprocate his interest in her (Gates Jr., McKay (1948- 1949)).

5. Lula and Clay Dialogue Continued Soon after however, Lula begins speaking to Clay in a more vulgar manner, shifting the conversation to Clay’s manhood in the beginning of Scene II. In this time, Lula that tells Clay that he is afraid of white people just like his ancestors were (Gates Jr., McKay 5-7 (1956)), and proceeds to taunt Clay and dare him to do suggestive dancing with her while demeaning his “middle class” (Gates Jr., McKay 17-19 (1956)), “Uncle Tom” uptight character (Gates Jr., McKay 3-6, 9 (1957)). Eventually, this taunting by Lula becomes too much for Clay to bear and he hits her (Gates Jr., McKay 10 (1957)), and delivers to her and the passengers a railing, ranting diatribe where he tells everyone that they have no idea what black people like him have gone through.

6. Clay’s Culmination Clay verbally chastises Lula, saying that black cultural icons such as Bessie Smith and Charlie Parker are not something she should claim to know about – Clay says that the music that these icons put out spoke to a struggle for equality and acceptance that Lula presumptuously claims to know about (Gates Jr., McKay (1958)). In his final retorts, Clay says that Lula and other white people have no idea bout what he or his life is like, and says that she and other white folks should be quiet and stop claiming to know, adding that all the black musicians (that white people like Lula like to reference and talk about) would not think twice about paying back Lula and her ilk with the same violence and recklessness shown toward black people’s ancestors (Gates Jr., McKay 1 (1959)).

7. Lula’s Violent Response Lula is not impressed or easily silenced by Clay speaking about how he really feels (Gates Jr., McKay 2 (1959)), and just as Clay is leaving after he says he is sorry things never worked out between them, she stabs him with a knife (Gates Jr., McKay (1959)).

8. The Flying Dutchman’s Eternity of Stormy Sailing and Lula’s Knifing: Things Never The Same? Just as how the Captain of the ship in the Legend of the Flying Dutchman was punished forever after he decided to confront a storm that was challenging his sailing, Clay is killed by Lula after challenging Lula back after she challenges him. Lula makes clear that Clay’s death is irreversible punishment for Clay calling her out and challenging her back when she says, after stabbing him, “Sorry is right. Sorry is the rightest thing you said.” (Gates Jr., McKay 6 (1959)).