Sorrow,Rage And Awakening

August Wilson, an African American playwright, and one of the most important and inspiring voices in contemporary American theatre, has blended the blues with his dramas. By vernacularizing the blues on stage, Wilson has in fact reconstructed African American history, and paved a path for those marginalized blacks to transcend the sorrow, release their anger, relieve the stress and realize their self-awakening.In six of Wilson’s best known plays:Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984), Fences (1987), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1988), The Piano Lesson (1990), Two Trains Running (1991), and Seven Guitars (1995), the blues and its symbols possess abundant connotations, reflect the sorrow and rage of African Americans, demonstrate their strong sense of national identity and display the living conditions of the marginalized people in the mainstream culture.Taking the blues theories from Albert Murray, Houston A. Baker, Jr. and some others as a theoretical frame work, the thesis aims to examine the three major themes closely related to the blues in Wilson’s selected plays, namely, sorrow, rage and awakening. Firstly, it briefly introduces August Wilson’s ten-play cycle, his literary style, dramatic vision and its significance. By summarizing and critically reviewing current researches on Wilson both at home and abroad, the thesis introduces the research perceptive, significance of the study as well as its structure. Secondly, by retrospecting and examining the history, its development and function of the blues in American literature, the thesis explores the common grounds that both the blues in history and that of Wilson’s share. Thirdly, as blues is a symbol of national memory of African Americans, which embodies historical sorrows and distresses, the thesis goes on to discuss the connotation of the blues in Wilson’s plays. Following the three lines:"the search for sense of belonging", "the search for sense of identity" and "the search for selfhood", the author endeavors to find out how blues artistically functions as an expression of the blacks’sorrowful feelings and as a means for the release of such feelings, then points out that they feel painful, sad and distressed because they are suffering from the loss of love, the dear ones, opportunities as well as their own black identity. However, Wilson helps to soothe their sorrowful feelings and heal their spiritual wound by restoring to the blues and its symbols-the railroads, the musical instruments and the weapons that effectively transcend and release their pains. They gradually retreat from the conventional role of "the underdog", and begin to rebel the inequality from the history and the society. Finally, the last part of the thesis focuses on the discussion of the black men, particularly the next generations of those black men like Cory Masxon, Hedly, Berniece, Louise, who walk out of the shadow of history, embrace the African cultural heritage and reconstruct their identity with the inspiration of the blues. Based on what has been discussed above, the thesis concludes that the blues is a pivotal carrier for Wilson’s drama writing, and the playwright empowers it with the profound meanings and the great power of artistic expression. Those six plays that have been discussed are just like six wonderful melodies of the blues, expressing the feelings of joy and sorrow, rage and contemplation; they are not only a reflection of African Americans’ living conditions in the twentieth century, but also Wilson’s contemplation and concern over the existential conditions of African Americans and the whole mankind.