Expressionist Elements in The Emperor Jones by Eugene O’Neill

 

Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, first performed in 1920, is one of the earliest examples of Expressionism in American theatre. While many plays of the time were realistic, focusing on the external world and everyday life, The Emperor Jones turns inward. It explores the inner mind and emotional struggles of its main character, Brutus Jones, a former Pullman porter who declares himself the ruler of a Caribbean island. As he runs into the jungle to escape a rebellion, his physical journey becomes a mental and emotional one, full of visions, memories, and fear.

What Is Expressionism in Theatre?

Expressionism in drama is a movement that began in Europe in the early 20th century. Instead of focusing on realistic details, Expressionist plays show the world as seen through the eyes of the main character. These plays often use:

·         Distorted or exaggerated scenes

·         Symbolism and dreamlike settings

·         Shifting lights and sounds

·         Hallucinations or visions

·         Strong emotions and inner struggles

In Expressionist drama, the stage becomes a mirror of the mind, and reality is shaped by the feelings and fears of the characters.

Expressionism in The Emperor Jones

Inner Journey and Psychological Reality

The main Expressionist element in The Emperor Jones is the way the play shows Jones’s mind rather than the real world. As he runs through the jungle, he starts seeing visions from his past and from African-American history. These visions are not “real” in the physical sense, but they are very real to Jones and to the audience.

At the beginning, Jones speaks confidently. He believes in his power. But slowly, as fear grows inside him, he sees images from his past, like:

·  A chain gang, reminding him of his time in prison

·  A slave auction, showing the history of African American slavery

·  A slave ship, reflecting the horrors of the Middle Passage

· A Congo witch-doctor, symbolizing a return to his ancestral past

These scenes do not happen in real time. They are expressions of Jones’s guilt, fear, and identity crisis. The jungle becomes a symbolic space where the past returns to haunt him.

 

Symbolism and the Use of the Tom-Tom Drum

The sound of the tom-tom drum is heard throughout the play. At first, it is soft, but it becomes louder and faster as the play progresses. This drumbeat is not only a sign that the rebels are coming closer, but also a symbol of Jones’s heartbeat, fear, and loss of control.

“(The tom-tom is heard... louder than before... the beat is quicker.)”

The drum is a perfect example of Expressionism because it represents emotion through sound. As Jones’s mental state breaks down, the drumbeat becomes more intense, showing his inner panic.

Lighting and Stage Design

O’Neill’s stage directions are full of instructions for lighting and shadows, which are used to create a dreamlike, haunting atmosphere. As Jones moves deeper into the jungle, the lighting changes. Darkness surrounds him. Sometimes, only parts of his face or body are lit, creating a sense of confusion and fear.

“A shaft of moonlight crosses the stage. Jones... shrinks back.” The lighting does not reflect the natural world; instead, it shows what Jones is feeling. This technique is another key feature of Expressionist theatre.

The Use of Language

Jones speaks in a distinct dialect, using African American vernacular. His voice changes as the play goes on from strong and commanding to broken and fearful. This change in speech shows his loss of power and confidence. His slipping into childlike speech shows his return to a more primitive or vulnerable state. This regression is both emotional and psychological.

Visions as Symbolic Encounters

Each of Jones’s visions is deeply symbolic and Expressionist in nature. They represent not only his own past, but the shared trauma of Black history. These scenes are not meant to be realistic, but allegorical.

For example, in the slave auction scene, Jones does not only see himself being sold he becomes every enslaved person in history. In Expressionist drama, characters often lose their individual identity and take on universal roles.

Breakdown of Time and Space

In traditional realist plays, time and space are clear and continuous. But in The Emperor Jones, time is fluid. One moment, Jones is in the present; the next, he is reliving the past or facing ancient fears. The scenes feel like dreams or nightmares.

This creates a non-linear structure, where cause and effect do not matter. What matters is the emotional truth of each moment.

O’Neill uses Expressionism to explore deeper human truths—not just what happens, but what it feels like to lose power, to face guilt, and to be haunted by history. Brutus Jones is not just a man running through a jungle. He is a symbol of:

·         Colonialism and its collapse

·         The illusion of power

·         The burden of racial history

·         The fear of death and judgment

In the final scene, when Jones is shot by the rebels and the beat of the drum stops, it is not just a literal death. It is the end of an illusion, the collapse of a man who believed he could escape the past.

Famous Critical Viewpoints

Many critics have praised The Emperor Jones for its bold use of Expressionist techniques:

·Eric Bentley called it “a breakthrough in American theatre... where inner life is more important than outer events.”

·Robert Brustein noted that “the jungle in the play is not a place, but a state of mind.”

·Harold Bloom referred to the play as “a poetic tragedy of racial memory and psychological torment.”

 

The Emperor Jones summary

Scene I: The Palace and the Revolt Begins

The play is set on a Caribbean island in the West Indies, in the throne room of Emperor Brutus Jones, a self-declared ruler. It’s late afternoon, and the palace is strangely empty. An old black woman sneaks through silently, followed by a white trader named Smithers who demands to know what’s happening.

Smithers learns that the island’s native people, led by a former tribal chief named Lem, have stolen the horses and fled to the hills to plan a rebellion against Jones, whom they view as a tyrant. When Jones enters, Smithers hesitantly tells him the bad news. But Jones remains confident and calm.

He explains his past: he came from the United States, worked as a train porter, killed a man named Jeff in a gambling fight, went to prison, and later escaped. Arriving on the island, he teamed up with Smithers, saw how Smithers exploited the natives, and soon took over as their leader by claiming to have magical powers. He told them that only a silver bullet could kill him.

Now, although the natives have revolted, Jones believes he is safe. He has money in a foreign bank, food hidden in the forest, and an escape route planned. He even has a “lucky charm” — what he believes is the only silver bullet on the island.

As Jones prepares to escape, the sound of tribal drums begins in the distance. Smithers tells him it’s a war ritual to summon courage. Jones pretends not to be afraid and starts his journey into the forest at 3:30 p.m.

 

Scene II: Into the Forest – First Hallucination

By evening, Jones reaches the forest’s edge, exhausted. He hears the steady drumbeats, which match a normal heartbeat. When he tries to find the hidden food, it’s gone.

Suddenly, he begins to hallucinate — shadowy, child-sized creatures called “Little Formless Fears” appear. They represent his rising anxiety and self-doubt. Jones panics and shoots at them. They vanish, and the drumbeats grow faster. Shaken but determined, he continues into the forest.

Scene III: Haunted by the Past – Jeff Returns

It is 9:00 p.m. The moonlight makes the forest look eerie. Jones reaches a small clearing, scratched and worn from the dense foliage. There, he sees a vision of Jeff, the man he once killed. Haunted by guilt, he shoots at the hallucination, which disappears. Once again, he flees deeper into the forest as the drumbeats grow faster and louder.

 

Scene IV: The Prison Vision

An hour before midnight, Jones finds a dirt road. Now barely clothed, he’s drenched in sweat and throws off parts of his uniform. He sees another hallucination — this time of black prisoners working on a chain gang. A cruel white guard orders Jones to join them. In a trance, Jones obeys but resists when the guard beats him. He tries to fight back with an imaginary shovel, but when that fails, he fires another shot. The scene vanishes. He escapes again into the forest, the drumbeats pounding louder.

 

Scene V: Slave Auction

At 1:00 a.m., Jones enters a large circular clearing. In his mind, the space transforms into a 19th-century slave auction. He sees a crowd buying and selling slaves — and he becomes one of them. When he is put up for sale, Jones fires at the hallucinated slave buyer. The vision disappears. He runs again as the drumbeats accelerate.

Scene VI: The Slave Ship

At 3:00 a.m., Jones crawls into a small, low clearing beneath the forest canopy. The moonlight barely reaches the space. Jones is nearly naked, reduced to wearing only a breechcloth, and his last silver bullet remains. He begins another hallucination: this time, he imagines being chained aboard a slave ship with other Africans being transported to America. The vision fades as the drumbeats become louder and faster.

 

Scene VII: The Witch Doctor and the Final Shot

At 5:00 a.m., Jones reaches the base of a huge tree near a river. There, he sees a witch doctor dancing wildly. Entranced, Jones begins to chant and dance with him. The witch doctor signals that Jones must be sacrificed to a river god in the form of a crocodile. With a final act of resistance, Jones fires his last bullet at the vision of the crocodile.

 

Scene VIII: The End of the Journey

At dawn, the final scene returns to where Jones began his escape. Lem and his group of native rebels arrive with Smithers. They follow Jones’s trail and talk about how they spent the night beating drums and casting spells. Smithers mocks their methods, but Lem is confident. Suddenly, the sound of someone moving through the forest is heard. The rebels fire, and Jones is killed — revealing that he had been running in circles all night.

The drumbeats stop. Lem shows that they too had made silver bullets from melted coins  proving Jones's superstition was false. The men drag away Jones’s body. Smithers, left alone, scornfully remarks on the whole affair.

Absurdism in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

 

Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) is a searing, night-long psychodrama that dissects the disintegration of personal identity, marriage, and the illusion of the American Dream. Though written in the context of postwar American realism, the play reflects the deep influence of Absurdist Theatre, fusing it with elements of Modernism, Symbolism, Existentialism, and Psychological Realism. Albee’s work is often associated with the Theatre of the Absurd, a movement propelled by writers such as Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco, and his play masterfully channels this influence through grotesque humor, cyclical conflict, and the ultimate futility of communication.

 

At the heart of Absurdist drama lies a central paradox: the human longing for meaning in a world that offers none. Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? explores this paradox within the domestic sphere. George and Martha engage in an endless series of psychological “games” Humiliate the Host, Get the Guests, Bringing Up Baby which echo the ritualized, repetitive behavior characteristic of Absurdist theatre.

The action of the play takes place in real time, within the confined space of the living room much like the static setting of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. This spatial claustrophobia is significant: it creates a sense of entrapment, reflecting the existential crisis of the characters. The characters speak in circular, often contradictory dialogues. There is a constant performative quality to their interactions, yet beneath the surface lies existential dread, loneliness, and a craving for authenticity.

Albee’s use of Absurdism is most powerfully expressed in the climactic revelation that George and Martha’s son is a fabrication a shared illusion. This invented child, created to provide emotional balance in a barren relationship, symbolizes the absurdity of human constructs that are meant to give life meaning. When George “kills” the son in the final act, the illusion collapses, and the couple is left with nothing but their own emptiness, a devastating reflection of the Absurdist idea that meaning is a human invention, not inherent.

Albee’s play also functions as a Modernist critique of the American Dream. While superficially realistic, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? employs a structure and tone that undermine traditional narrative form. The very title — a parody of a nursery rhyme transformed into a philosophical riddle — encapsulates the modernist impulse to question language and symbols. The American Dream of success, stability, and family is exposed as a hollow shell, exemplified in George’s professional failure and Martha’s unrealized maternal desires. The imaginary child is a symbolic projection of this lost dream, a form of surrogate fulfillment. Its destruction represents the demythologization of idealized domestic life.

The characters in the play are not only locked in conflict with each other; they are at war with  search for authenticity. Both George and Martha engage in self-deception, but also display flashes of existential awareness. Martha’s final line  “I am, George... I am”  is an acceptance of failure, vulnerability and perhaps the first moment of authenticity in the entire play. In existentialist terms, this is her recognition of the absurdity of existence and the futility of illusion.

Nick and Honey serve as existential foils to George and Martha. Nick, though ambitious and physically ideal, is morally shallow, emotionally impotent, and driven by utilitarian goals. Honey is childlike, psychologically repressed, and unable to cope with adult truths. Together, they represent a younger generation equally trapped in falsehood, thereby suggesting that existential inauthenticity is not confined to age or experience, but is a human condition.

Albee’s play is rich in linguistic irony. The characters wield language like a weapon using sarcasm, metaphor, contradiction, and cruelty. George and Martha’s conversations are less about meaningful communication and more about domination and survival. Dialogue becomes combat, not connection.

This aligns with the Absurdist view that language is inadequate in conveying truth. Words are twisted, emptied of stable meaning, and used to obscure rather than reveal. The games the characters play are structured by rules, yet these rules shift constantly, creating a sense of futility and instability.

Albee’s dramatic technique is subtle, but rich in symbolic meaning:

The Imaginary Child: Symbolizes the illusions people create to cope with emotional emptiness, infertility (both literal and metaphorical), and unfulfilled desires.

Snapdragons: The bouquet George brings in Act III may symbolize deception, strength, or false sincerity, serving as a grotesque peace offering that masks deeper tension.

The Toy Gun: Represents false violence, impotent rage, and theatricality — the gun fires an umbrella, not a bullet, reinforcing the theme of hollow gestures.

The Games: Each “game” reveals deeper psychological truths, functioning as ritualistic exorcisms that strip away the characters’ protective illusions.

Psychological Realism and Trauma

Although rooted in the absurd, Albee’s characters are psychologically complex and realistic. Martha’s aggression masks her longing for love and motherhood. George’s cynicism hides wounds of professional and emotional failure. The invention of a child functions as a trauma response, allowing the couple to reimagine their lives as meaningful.

This use of psychological realism distinguishes Albee’s absurdism from that of Beckett or Ionesco. His characters bleed emotionally. Their suffering is palpable, relatable, and painfully human. The emotional unraveling seen in the final act mirrors the process of psychoanalytic exposure the breaking down of defense mechanisms to reveal the repressed core.

 

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee summary and analysis

The play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is set on a small university campus in New England. This setting serves as a suitable backdrop to portray the personal frustrations, emotional conflicts, and failures of its characters. Both the play and its film adaptation are structured into three acts titled “Fun and Games,” “Walpurgisnacht,” and “The Exorcism.”

Edward Albee opens the play in a typically American style. He deliberately names the main characters George and Martha, after the first American President George Washington and his wife Martha, to emphasize the "American-ness" of the story. George is a history professor, and Martha is the daughter of the college president. Their marriage is dysfunctional and bitter. The play begins late at night after they return from a faculty party. Martha, without George’s consent, invites a young couple, Nick and Honey, over for drinks. This small detail hints at the power imbalance and tension in George and Martha's relationship.

 

Act I: “Fun and Games”

In the first act, George and Martha begin to insult and mock each other openly in front of their guests. Their verbal attacks are relentless, cruel, and personal. George mocks Martha’s drinking and age, while Martha accuses George of being a failure, particularly pointing out his stalled career. She taunts him for not receiving a promotion in the history department, despite her father’s influence as the college president.

Martha’s constant humiliation of George escalates as she recalls having once punched him in front of her father. She also flirts with Nick, adding to George’s public humiliation. In a dramatic moment, George appears with a gun and shoots at Martha  but the gun is a toy, and instead of a bullet, it releases a parasol, adding a grotesque comic effect to the tension.

Meanwhile, Honey becomes increasingly uncomfortable. She drinks excessively and eventually runs to the bathroom to vomit, distressed by the ongoing verbal warfare.

 

Act II: “Walpurgisnacht” (The Night of Witches)

The second act reveals deeper layers of the characters' lives. George and Nick talk outside. Nick confesses that his marriage to Honey was based on a misunderstanding: he believed she was pregnant, but it turned out to be a hysterical pregnancy a psychological condition where symptoms of pregnancy are imagined. He implies that this illusion forced him into the marriage.

George then tells a disturbing story from his youth about a boy who accidentally killed his parents. This story appears to have autobiographical overtones and foreshadows a later revelation. Back inside, the tensions rise further. Martha dances seductively with Nick in front of everyone, further degrading George. She also brings up George’s failed attempt to publish a novel  which, interestingly, recounts a story similar to the one George just shared.

Martha takes pride in the fact that her father prevented the publication of the novel by burning the manuscript, asserting control over George’s intellectual life. Enraged, George tries to strangle Martha in front of their guests. What follows is another psychological “game” called “Get the Guests.” During the game, George exposes Honey’s hysterical pregnancy, causing her to once again flee to the bathroom to vomit.

As tensions rise, Martha and Nick go upstairs together, implying that they are going to sleep together. George, seething with silent fury, throws his book down in rage.

 

Act III: “The Exorcism”

The final act opens with Martha sitting alone in the living room. George soon enters, carrying a bunch of snapdragons symbolic flowers often associated with deception and strength in adversity. A bizarre argument ensues between the two about whether the moon is upstairs or downstairs, a metaphor for their emotional and psychological disorientation.

Nick also arrives, and it is revealed that his sexual encounter with Martha may not have happened due to his excessive drinking. Martha turns on Nick, mocking and emasculating him. To defuse the mounting tension, George announces a final game: “Bringing Up Baby.” He prompts Martha to speak about their "son" a child whom both seem to cherish.

Together, George and Martha narrate a detailed story of their son's life. However, George suddenly announces that a telegram arrived while Martha and Nick were upstairs. According to the message, their son died in a car accident earlier that day after swerving to avoid a porcupine. Martha is horrified and screams that George has no right to “kill” their son. It becomes clear to Nick and Honey — and to the audience — that this son never existed. He was an imagined child, a fictional creation that George and Martha had invented to cope with the emotional emptiness and meaninglessness of their lives.

George “kills” the fictional son because Martha broke a critical rule: she mentioned the boy to outsiders. This reveals the fragile, imaginary world they built to survive their failed marriage and hollow existence. In the end, even this illusion is destroyed.

 

Significance of the Title: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The title is a playful variation of the song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” from Walt Disney’s 1933 cartoon The Three Little Pigs.Edward Albee replaces “Big Bad Wolf” with “Virginia Woolf,” the famous modernist British writer known for her deeply introspective, psychologically complex, and often experimental works. In the play, the title appears as a mock nursery rhyme, first sung by Martha at the end of Act I and finally repeated in the devastating last scene.

Virginia Woolf’s writing is associated with psychological depth, introspective truth, and emotional rawness things that George and Martha (and perhaps all humans) are afraid to face. At the end of the play, Martha’s final reply — “I am, George, I am” — is an admission that: She is afraid of confronting reality.

 

 

 

The title Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is not simply a joke or a pun  it is a symbolic and philosophical question. It challenges both the characters and the audience to ask:

· Who is brave enough to strip away illusions?

· Who dares to live without lies, roles, and invented identities?

· Who is not afraid to confront emotional and existential truth, just as Virginia Woolf confronted hers?

 

Martha’s Final Answer: “I am, George. I am.”

This is the most powerful moment in the play:

· Martha admits her fear of reality.

· It is an act of emotional surrender, human vulnerability, and perhaps the beginning of truth in their broken relationship.

 

Character Analysis

George

George is a middle-aged history professor at a small New England college. Though intelligent and articulate, he is emotionally repressed, professionally stagnant, and deeply insecure. Despite being married to the daughter of the college president, George has failed to rise in his academic career, a fact that Martha never lets him forget. His frustrations are compounded by a sense of emasculation and failure, both as a husband and as a scholar.

George’s weapon is language — he uses wit, irony, sarcasm, and cruelty as tools to defend himself. Throughout the play, he appears passive-aggressive and bitter, but underneath his cynicism lies a profound emotional pain. His retreat into illusion, including the fabrication of an imaginary son, reveals his inability to confront reality. However, in the final act, he attempts to regain control by "killing" the imaginary child, suggesting a desire to end the illusions and possibly redeem the relationship through truth.

 

Martha

Martha, the daughter of the university president, is loud, abrasive, and emotionally volatile. She constantly humiliates George, flirts with Nick, and uses vulgarity and confrontation as shields for her vulnerability. Her father’s high status at the university has given her a sense of entitlement, but she feels trapped in a meaningless life and an unfulfilling marriage.

Martha is desperate for emotional and sexual validation. Her flirtation with Nick and her constant attacks on George are attempts to assert her power, but they also reveal her deep loneliness. The imaginary son is perhaps her only source of emotional comfort — an idealized version of the life she never had.

 

Nick

Nick is a young biology professor, newly arrived at the college. Ambitious, confident, and physically attractive, he represents a younger generation with careerist goals and a pragmatic outlook on life. Initially polite and somewhat passive, Nick is gradually drawn into the psychological warfare between George and Martha.

His relationship with Honey is based on falsehood (a mistaken pregnancy), and his willingness to seduce Martha reveals moral ambiguity and opportunism. Though he begins as a symbol of strength and potential, he ultimately proves to be just as flawed as George — impotent, disillusioned, and emotionally weak. Albee subtly critiques the superficiality of modern ambition through Nick’s character.

Honey

Honey is Nick’s naive and childlike wife. Shy, submissive, and emotionally fragile, she spends most of the play drinking excessively and retreating from conflict. Her character serves as a foil to the others — she is not a combatant but a witness to the psychological games around her.

Her hysterical pregnancy  a false belief that she was pregnant  symbolizes her denial and repression. Honey is emotionally immature and unable to confront difficult truths. Her presence helps reveal the dysfunction in her marriage to Nick and underscores the theme of illusion versus reality.

Themes

Illusion vs. Reality

This is the central theme of the play. George and Martha construct a fantasy world to cope with the failures of their lives and marriage their imaginary son being the most powerful symbol of this illusion. The play forces the characters, and the audience, to confront the uncomfortable truth that illusions can only offer temporary comfort.

 

The Failure of the American Dream

Albee critiques the hollowness of the American Dream, particularly the belief that success, family, and stability are universally attainable. George and Martha  despite their academic and social advantages  are deeply unfulfilled. Their lives reflect emotional, personal, and professional disappointment.

 

Marital Conflict and Psychological Violence

The play explores the emotional warfare between spouses. George and Martha’s marriage is built on sarcasm, resentment, and mutual degradation. Yet their cruelty masks a deep dependency. Albee suggests that even toxic relationships can have a twisted intimacy.

Interpretation: Their “games” are both a form of emotional survival and a desperate call for recognition and love.

 

Power, Gender, and Emasculation

Gender roles are sharply critiqued in the play. Martha, traditionally expected to be submissive, is domineering and aggressive. George, traditionally expected to be powerful, is emasculated. Nick represents a new generation of masculinity  ambitious but morally compromised.

Insight: The play subverts gender expectations to explore the fragility of male identity and the cost of dominance.