Unlocked Minds: August Wilson’s Suspects, Ex-Cons, or Soon-to-Be Convicted Characters in his American Century Cycle

Authors

  • Skyler Easton Saunders Independent scholar

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/awj.2020.55

Keywords:

August Wilson, jail, prison, incarceration, Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Parchman Farm, American Century Cycle

Abstract

This essay is a meditation on the significant number of carceral references made by the late Mr. August Wilson in his American Century Cycle. It sets out to delineate the various instances where Mr. Wilson mentions the many associated pains, both mental and corporal, that crop up in lives of his characters, related to prisons, jail, work farms, chain gangs and other forms of detainment and imprisonment.

An erratum has been published at DOI: https://doi.org/10.5195/awj.2020.65.

Author Biography

Skyler Easton Saunders, Independent scholar

I am registering as an indepedent author under Dr. Michael Downing.

References

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Caywood, Cynthia L. and Carlton Floyd. “She Make You Right with Yourself”: Aunt Ester, Masculine Loss and Cultural Redemption in August Wilson’s Cycle Plays,” College Literature, Johns Hopkins UP 9 Apr. 2009, muse.jhu.edu/article/262599. Accessed 5 June 2020.

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---. Jitney. New York, Theatre Communications Group, 2007.

---. Joe Turner's Come and Gone. New York, Theatre Communications Group, 2007.

---. King Hedley II. New York, Theatre Communications Group, 2007.

---. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. New York, Theatre Communications Group, 2007.

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---. Radio Golf. New York, Theatre Communications Group, 2007.

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The Hidden Transcript in Jitney.” August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle. U of Iowa P. 2010. Accessed 5 June 2020.

Zhang, Hongmei. “August Wilson’s Otherness in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 6 (1): 171 Jan. 2016. Accessed 5 June 2020.

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Published

2020-07-17

Issue

Section

Articles