the character, asides and soliloquies, dialogue between characters, hidden narration, and character in action.
1. Nice Man
Clay Williams is a twenty-year-old African American man. Based on Reaske’s theory of character, a way to define the characters of literary works is
from hidden narration. The first depiction of Clay comes from the opening narration, which states
“CLAY, twenty-year-old Negro” p. 999. From the quotation of narration, it is clear that Clay is an African American man. He is also
a nice man as he responded Lula’s “hello” nicely as he read his magazine.
LULA. Hello. CLAY. Uh,
hi’re you? LULA.
I’m going to sit down. . . . O.K.? CLAY. Sure. Baraka, p. 1-2
By reading his response, it shows that he is a nice Black man. He is putting aside the racial issue between African Americans and White Americans that appears in
that time. Indeed, Lula knows that he is a nice man, so she takes advantage and starts to lure him into her
own “game”, her imagination of Clay as a White man.
2. Naive Man
Clay is a twenty-year-old African American man who still has a young spirit. In the year where he is looking for
his “real-self”. As the conversation goes along with
the “game” that Lula plays toward Clay, another character that the writer finds about Clay that he is a naive young man.
CLAY. [Cocking his head from one side to the other, embarrassed and try to make some comeback, but also intrigued by what the woman is
saying. . .even the sharp city coarseness of her voice, which is still
a kind of gentle sidewalk throb ] Really? I look like all that?
LULA. But it’s true, most of it, right? Jersey? Your bumpy neck?
CLAY. How’d you know all that? Huh? Really. I mean about Jersey ...
and even the beard. I met you before? You know Warren Enright? LULA. You tried to make it with your sister when you were ten.
[Clay leans back hard against the back of the seat, his eyes opening now, still trying to look amused
]. But I succeeded a few weeks ago [She starts to laugh again
] Baraka, p. 2 As Reaske states, a way to define a characteristic of a person is by examining the
dialogue between characters. At the beginning of the conversation, Clay seems innocent and stupid in reacting to Lula’s statement. He can not cover his young
spirit and answers Lula’s question with excitement. However, his excitement
towar ds Lula’s question can not hide his knowledge as an educated man.
As the play goes on, the writer sees that Clay actually pretends to be innocent and stupid to cover his capability t
o adapt Lula’s more limited capability to carry out the conversation. From the dialogue above, it can be seen that Lula
begins to enjoy her “game” towards Clay and laughs at Clay’s innocence and stupidity, although he knows and aware of what he is doing with Lula, also the
condition of African American and White American people in that time.
3. Middle-class and Educated Man
Living as black people in America is not easy, since they first came to the land of liberty with many struggles as slaves. The situation is almost the same
with Clay who struggles to gain his status as an African American man in society. He is a free man, he wants to abolish the systematic connection of an African
American man equaling a slave. He goes to college and he refers to himself as Baudelaire, a French poet and critic.
LULA. And who did you think you were? Who do you think you are now? CLAY. [Laughs as if so make light to the whole trend of the
Conversation]. Well, in college I thought I was Baudelaire. But Ive slowed down since. Baraka, p. 5
Based on the conversation above, the writer finds that Clay is an educated African American man. An educated African American man in that time means he was not
in the lower-class, his class status brings him to the college to gain knowledge in education.
Following with the statement of Clay’s long speech, “. . . If I’m a middle-
class fake white man ... let me be. . .” Baraka, p. 8, which shows Clay is a middle-class man. He also tries to imitate himself to a poet and critic who was a
White French man, Baudelaire. Although, the others used to imitate Averell Harriman, who was a White American Democratic Party politician, diplomat, and
businessman. Baudelaire addressed his literary works through themes such as sex, death, metamorphosis, lost innocence, the corruption of the city and melancholy,
all themes familiar to Clay, since he goes to college and is interested to poetry.
4. Identity Issues Experienced by Clay
The writer finds another depiction of Clay in the play that he has an identity issues with himself as an African American man. The suit he is wearing
during the event, a three button suit, which shows his class status in the society as a middle-class African American man, instead of dressing like a White American.
Reaske states the appearance of a character is a device that can be used to analyze the character
“we can learn from the stage directions how they look, how they walk onto the stage and how they are dressed up.
” Reaske, 1966: 45
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