AugustWilson.net

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Restoring a Personal Mythology

By Michael Downing

"The one thing we did not have as black Americans was a mythology. . . ."
---August Wilson

In his book, Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the "Racial" Self, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. develops his notion of the role of the black poet as cultural mythmaker. Gates begins by reaching into the past and comparing the role of the black poet to the role of the black musician in African-American culture. In Chapter Six, "Dis and Dat: Dialect and the Descent," Gates argues:

"It has been the traditional role of the black poet . . . to be the point of consciousness, or superconsciousness, of his or her people. It is the black poet who bridges the gap in tradition, who modifies tradition when experience demands it, who translates experience into meaning and meaning into belief. The poet . . . through the process of translating meaning into belief, has had to serve a mythopoeic function, a function of incorporating experience into a people's pantheon of value, a process more integral to the stability of society than would be of incorporating experience into belief" (176).

Throughout each of his plays, African American playwright August Wilson consistently fulfills this role. By incorporating the day-to-day experiences of African Americans into a literary "pantheon of value," Wilson stands as a "point of consciousness."  It's important to note that, in several interviews--including his interview with Bill Moyers--Wilson has asserted the importance of knowing one's past as a key to understanding one's present. He claims that anyone who does not know his or her past is lost and therefore will be unable to consciously lay claim to the future. Personally for Wilson, understanding the realities of his own past leads him toward moving beyond the pain of those realities, toward celebrating the power of the present, and subsequently toward the willful creation of a sacred future. This attitude carries into his plays.

In order to fully appreciate Wilson's process of converting stereotype to archetype, it is important to understand how Wilson has mythically reconstructed his personal past. Born Frederick August Kittel in Pittsburgh's Hill District in 1945, Wilson was raised by his mother, Daisy Wilson, and stepfather, David Bedford. By the age of sixteen, Wilson had dropped out of high school. Abandoned by his natural father and living as a young black man without a high school diploma (at one point being accused of plagiarism), Wilson persevered, writing his poetry and working with Rob Penny to found the Black Horizons Theater.  He eventually changed his last name from Kittel to Wilson, and this marks his first re-inscription, a recognition that an alteration in language was the first step to altering reality.  Wilson was also able to re-inscribe his educational experience, replacing the biases he encountered in high school with hands-on personal experience.

According to August Wilson himself, his literary project is to chronicle the experience of African Americans living in the United States during the 20th Century, and constructing a mythology is an integral ingredient in this process. In an interview entitled, "Blues, History, and Dramaturgy: An Interview with August Wilson," conducted by contemporary scholar and critic Sandra Shannon, Wilson asserts his desire to:

"keep all of the elements of the culture alive in my work, and myth is certainly part of it. Mythology, history, social organizations, economics--all of these things are part of the culture. I make sure that each element is in some way represented--some elements more so than others--in the plays, which I think gives them a fullness and completeness, creates the impression that this is an entire world" ("Blues" 539).

To cite this page:

Downing, Michael. "Chapter One: Introduction." AugustWilson.net. Date of Publication. Today's Date. URL.

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