The Emperor Jones

1. The Emperor Jones • Collective unconscious: • Enables one to beaware of his collective history, whichincludes the culture and the historical background. • O’neil uses archetypes to trigger the collective consciousness, henceheleads Jones to becomeaware of hisroots.

2. Archetypes • Whatthey are and how O’neil uses them. • They are primordial images, the psycheresidue of repeated patterns of commonhumanexperiences in the lives of the veryancestors of a definite culture • They are part of a specific culture. • EX: Slavery and the African-American People

3. Archetypes • Someexamples of achetypes: • Auction block • Drums • Slave ships Achetypes survive in the collective unsconscious of the humance race and are expressed in myths, religion, dreams and primitive fantasies.

4. The main symbols (functions) • Drums (Symbolizes Jones’ heart • The silverbullets, the dicesthrown by Jeff, the crocodile, as well as the belland the bonerattle(as symbols of greed and money). • The forest, the rays of light, and the form of clearance (as symbols of realization and acts as the audience’sunconscious)

5. Expressionism • Early 20th centuryliterarymovement in Germany thatpositedthat art shouldrepresentpowerfulemotional states and mood. • It produceddistorted, nightmarish images of the self and the individualunconscious. • Very subjective to interpretation.

6. Realism vs ExpressionismRealism and expressionism are opposite movements, the former is the movement of mid- to late 19th-century art, and the last one is the style initiated in the second decade of the 20th century. • The goal of realismis to represent the external world objectivelybasing on unbiased life observation. Realismprefersmere observation to idealization; itrevealsaccurate and detailed nature and life depiction. Differentpaintersworkedwithinthis style French, American, German. Sometimessuchfrankdepiction of life were shocking to the viewers. • There were close to realism style social realism, whichdevelopedlater, during the depression-era, and itwasalsoquitestraightforward in life depicting. • Expressionismdevelopedlaterthanrealism, the termwas first used in 1910 and itunitedsuchartists as Kandinsky, Marc and Nolde. • The style put an emphasis on feelings expressions which are expressed in personal and powerfulway. In broadersenseexpressionismtermisreferred to independentlyworkingartists Rouault, Soutine, Vlaminck, Kokoschka, Schiele. Realism and expressionism are quite opposite in their goals, the last one conveysinnerexperience opposite to realismwhichdirectlyrepresentnatural images.

7. Realism and Expressionism

8. Expressionism • 5 Elements: • Atmosphere • Setting • Plot and structure • Character • Dialogue Distortion of images to exagerate the experience

9. Distortion of self • Jones’ unconscious’ state to a conscious one • He goesdeeperinto the collective unconscious of his people, hence, embrasingsubjectivity. • O’neil uses CYCLYCAL HISTORY to help Jones becomeaware of hisindividualunconscious.

10. Conversations (Start) • Jones’ (Oppressor) Vs Smithers (oppressed) • Smithers (Oppressor) Vs the Woman (oppressed) • Jones (Oppressor) Vs the Tribe (oppressed) • Theme of black Vs White • Good Vs Evil

11. Conversations (change) • BUT a reversal occurs and the roles are inverted. This should have happened, for Jones ought to have been in touchwithhisown nature at first.

12. Jones’ Masks • What are they and why are they important? • Black vs White / White Vs oppressor • Behind the mask – Trueidentity as an African-American. • Cannotbeboth • Brutus Jones (Traitor American)

13. The Theme of denial • Does the same actions over and over again • He denies the factthathecommitted crimes • He denieshisroots

14. Jones’ journey and Cyclycalhistory • Standard timeline

15. Cyclycalhistory