Heroes and Saints and Dutchman Themes

Themes in Heroes and Saints and Dutchman

The play Heroes and Saints depicts the plight of a Mexican farming community whose members protest against pesticide poisoning, which they accuse of causing numerous birth defects and cancers among their children. On the other hand, Dutchman depicts the hatred between whites and blacks in America as well as the psychological and political conflicts facing black men in the 1960s. This text studies themes around gender, sexuality, and racial identity emerging from both plays. It also identifies some of the tactics that the playwrights use to minimize resistance.

CRUCIAL EMERGENT THEMES

One of the emergent themes in the area of gender in both plays is stereotyping and the objectification of women. In Dutchman, Lula seductively approaches Clay on a train and uses her female charm to win his trust before eventually murdering him. Clay is a successful intellectual of African-American origin, which stereotypically depicts men as objects of success in society, and women as sex objects for satisfying men’s lustful desires. Women are expected to be nurturing, while men are expected to be agentic and dominant. In Dutchman, men’s dominance is showed when Clay, angered by Lula’s behaviour on the train, manhandles and slaps her, and none of the other passengers intervenes because they perceive such behaviour as acceptable given differences in gender roles. In Heroes and Saints, the author associates womanhood with ‘tonguelesness’, which Cerezita, the main character, defines as lacking the power of speech to speak freely and push for one’s freedom from oppression. In one of the exchanges with her mother, Cerezita, suffering from birth deformities, accuses her mother of tongue-tying her by refusing to allow her to speak in public just because of her physical appearance.

Towards the end of both plays, however, women emerge to dispute these gender stereotypes and to fight against their perception as the weaker gender. In Dutchman, Lula murders Clay to secure her freedom from oppression. Cerezita in Heroes and Saints equally comes out to demand her freedom. She lacks a physical body but uses ritual performance to speak against the oppression that was being meted on her community through pesticide poisoning. The women’s behaviour towards the end of both plays symbolizes a second theme of women-led activism against gender oppression and stereotyping.

In the area of sexuality, an emergent theme is the lack of acceptance for non-conventional sexual identities in the Mexican society. In one of the scenes, priest Juan openly criticizes Mario, a homosexual, arguing that his beliefs contravene the Bible teachings. Similarly, Cerezita’s mother argues that AIDS is God’s punishment for homosexuality and criticizes Mario for engaging in a social ill that is against God’s teaching (Greenberg 173). Given the high standing that both Dolores and Juan hold in the society, their attempt to demonize Mario for his sexual orientation points to a general lack of acceptance for non-conventional sexual orientations among the community members.

In the area of racial identity, one crucial theme emerging from the two plays is positive regard towards one’s race or ethnic group. The Mexican community in Heroes and Saints accepted their place as minorities, but still decided to hold protests to push the government to address their concerns around pesticide poisoning. This indicates that the community valued and held their race in high regard despite the prevailing conditions that advocated for the oppression of racial and ethnic minorities. They pushed for government action to prevent a possible extinction of their ethnic group occasioned by the continued death of their children.

However, their push is met with systemic injustices, where the majority use race and ethnicity to justify the oppression and disenfranchisement of minorities, while imposing certain powers and privileges on majority groups. This theme is evident in both plays. In Dutchman, Lula unjustly murders Clay and goes unpunished because of her white status. Similarly, in Heroes and Saints, those pushing for the rights of the Mexican community, such as Cerezita and the Union of Campesinos, are treated unjustly by the judicial system to the point of assassination as described in the last scene of the play. Thus, there is progress towards positive racial/ethnic regard but this is curtailed by unjust systems that use race to justify the oppression and disenfranchisement of minorities.

THE PLAYWRIGHTS’ TACTICS IN HIGHLIGHTING THEMES

Playwrights engaging in topics that are otherwise difficult to engage often face resistance. Resistance is the tendency to be inactive, particularly when addressing difficult or controversial topics. The success of a play partly depends on how well the playwright manages resistance by members of the cast and crew. One of the strategies that the playwrights use to minimize resistance is the use of symbolic iconography in place of dialogue when handling topics such as death and crucifixion. For instance, the topic of children’s crucifixion may be difficult to address using dialogue and may spark cast resistance. Thus, to minimize resistance and still make the children’s death more visible and meaningful to the audience, the playwright in Heroes and Saints uses symbolic iconography (Greenberg 165). Act one opens without dialogue. The audience only see a group of masked children erecting a child-size cross with an image of a crucified baby hanging from it. The use of iconography ensures that the dead bodies of the crucified children speak to the audience themselves (Greenberg 165).

A second strategy is the use of symbols in place of direct expression. For instance, topics that criticize national leaders in an oppressive political environment may attract resistance. The playwright in Heroes and Saints attempts to minimize such resistance by having the children put on calavera masks while erecting the crosses for their dead peers. Rather than directly criticizing the government’s actions, the children put on calavera masks to symbolize their connection to the deceased, whose death is as a result of government decisions. Similarly, rather than directly using government officials to destroy the Mexican community, the playwright uses a helicopter as a symbol of death and destruction to minimize the risk of conflict with government officials. Thus, symbolism and iconography are the two strategies that the playwrights use to minimize resistance.