The Emperor Jones By Eugene O'Neill, Summary and Analysis

 

The Emperor Jones

By Eugene O'Neill

INTRODUCTION:

Eugene O'Neill (1888 – 1953) is the only American playwright to have won the Nobel prize for literature, and the only dramatist to have won four Pulitzer prizes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his first play, ‘Beyond the Horizon’ (1920). He wrote 20 long plays and many shorter plays too. His most important plays are as follows:

1.   The Emperor Jones

2.   The Hairy Ape

3.   Desire Under the Elms

4.   Mourning Becomes Electra

5.   Strange Interlude

6.   Anna Christie.

SUMMARY OF THE PLAY:

Originally called ‘The Silver Bullet’, ‘The Emperor Jones’ is one of O'Neill's major experimental works, mixing expressionism and realism. It also presents the idea of US imperialism.

‘The Emperor Jones’ is a 1920 tragic play by an eminent American dramatist Eugene O'Neill that tells the tale of Brutus Jones, a resourceful, self-assured African American and a former Pullman porter, who kills another black man in a dice game, is jailed, and later escapes to a small, backward and superstitious Caribbean island. There he announces himself as a magician he sets himself up as emperor.

In two years, Jones makes himself "Emperor" of that place. A native tries to shoot Jones, but the gun misfires; and then Jones announces that he is protected by a charm and that only silver bullets could harm him.

As the emperor he puts heavy taxes on the local people and does all sorts of exploitation. In the final scene, Jones is killed by a silver bullet, which was the only way that the rebels believed Jones could be killed, and the way in which Jones planned to kill himself if he was captured.

MAJOR THEMES:

Eugene O'Neill has presented the themes of greed, pride, oppression, racism, slavery and autocracy through the character of Brutus Jones.

SYMBOL OF THE SILVER BULLET:

The silver bullet which Jones carries in his revolver is symbolic of his power over the native islanders. This silver (white) bullet also stands for white people’s domination over the black people.

He exploits the islanders by suggesting that he is cannot be killed by their lead (black) bullets, and now carries a silver bullet to show that if he is ever to die, it will be at his own hand, with a silver bullet. The silver bullet represents his false sense of importance, his exploitation of the people of the island.

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