Father Comes Home from the Wars

Against the backdrop of the American Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, which ended the legal protection of slavery in the United States, the enslaved and free characters in Father Comes Home from the Wars repeatedly ponder the nature of freedom—what it means, what it feels like, and what it entails. Each of these questions grows from a deeper, more primary question: is freedom something to be given as a gift, or is it something…

As it follows the life of Hero and his companions on a nameless plantation in Western Texas, Father Comes Home from the Wars casts a critical eye on the history of race, racism, and slavery in America. Throughout, the play highlights that race is an inadequate way of dividing up and assigning value to people. Based on flimsy distinctions like skin color, people like Boss-Master and Missus justify dehumanizing, enslaving, and abusing other human beings…

Early in Father Comes Home from the Wars, Fourth Less Desirable notes that it’s hard to take the measure of a man. Boss-Master, a white slaveowner, would disagree with this assessment, at least when it comes to enslaved Black people: most of the middle part of the play is given over to an imagined auction in which he schools his Union captive in how to calculate Hero’s worth down to the dollar…

The idea of an intact family haunts Father Comes Home from the War. Hero’s father was lynched for attempting to run away. Hero and Penny cannot conceive children. Even Boss-Master and Missus lost a son. The number of characters in the play who yearn for or make appeals to the idea of family suggest that it’s a deeply human thing to want to be with the people you love—that’s why Old Man adopts Hero…