The history of slavery in the United States is painfully alive in Gem of The Ocean. After all, characters like Solly and Aunt Ester were enslaved themselves, and the memory of that terrible experience is still fresh in their minds. Solly also worked on the Underground Railroad and vividly remembers what it was like to smuggle escapees to freedom. What’s more, the play’s title itself refers to a boat that forcefully took thousands of Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to be enslaved in America—a boat that Aunt Ester (who says she’s 285 years old) implies she was on. Serving as a spiritual guide of sorts, Aunt Ester helps Citizen Barlow make peace with himself by enabling him to take a metaphorical ride on the Gem of the Ocean to a mystical city called the City of Bones. The city itself is populated by the many Africans who didn’t make it across the ocean on the slave ships.
Although the City of Bones sounds like a harrowing and depressing place, the characters in the play all talk about it as if it’s a beautiful kind of paradise, implying that there’s something significant about acknowledging even the most painful parts of history. When Citizen makes his metaphorical journey to the City of Bones, he comes back feeling happier and more at ease with himself. It’s not exactly clear why spiritually visiting a city of dead enslaved people makes Citizen feel better, except that perhaps engaging with the trauma of slavery is better than trying to ignore it. Citizen himself was never enslaved, but he has dealt with racism for his entire life. The idea of a beautiful city-like afterlife for oppressed people is therefore oddly appealing, perhaps giving him hope that the horrors of racism won’t be able to reach this otherworldly realm of shared suffering. Of course, the exact meaning of Citizen’s trip to the City of Bones remains ambiguous. What’s quite clear, however, is the play’s suggestion that slavery isn’t just a fleeting part of some long-forgotten past—rather, the history and trauma of such horrific oppression reverberates into the present.
Related Themes from Other Texts
History and Trauma ThemeTracker
History and Trauma Quotes in Gem of the Ocean
I got memories go way back. I’m carrying them for a lot of folk. All the old-timey folks. I’m carrying their memories and I’m carrying my own. If you don’t want it I got to find somebody else. I’m getting old. Going on three hundred years now. That’s what Miss Tyler told me. Two hundred eighty-five by my count.
If you gonna do it…do it right! They wave the law on one end and hit you with a billy club with the other. I told myself I can’t just sit around and collect dog shit while the people drowning. The people drowning in sorrow and grief. That’s a mighty big ocean. They got the law tied to their toe. Every time they try and swim the law pull them under.
SOLLY: […] It’s dangerous out here. People walking around hunting each other. If you ain’t careful you could lose your eye or your arm. I seen that. I seen a man grab hold to a fellow and cut off his arm. Cut it off at the shoulder. He had to work at it a while…but he cut it clean off. The man looked down saw his arm gone and started crying. After that he more dangerous with that one arm than the other man is with two. He got less to lose. There’s a lot of one-arm men walking around.
ELI: That’s what Caesar can’t understand. He can’t see the people ain’t got nothing to lose.
SOLLY: […] I knew all them guns wasn’t on account of me. I figured they was fighting for themselves. And if that would help them that would help us.
ELI: They never said they was gonna help us. They said the war was gonna help us. After that it be every man for himself.
SOLLY: I told them you get what’s in it for you and I’ll get what’s in it for me. You get yours and I’ll get mine and we’ll settle the difference later. We still settling it.
Yeah, I burned it down! The people might get mad but freedom got a high price. You got to pay. No matter what it cost. You got to pay. I didn’t mind settling up the difference after the war. But I didn’t know they was gonna settle like this. I got older I see where I’m gonna die and everything gonna be the same. I say well at least goddamn it they gonna know I was here! The people gonna know about Solly Two Kings!
You see, Mr. Caesar, you can put the law on the paper but that don’t make it right. That piece of paper say I was property. Say anybody could buy or sell me. The law say I needed a piece of paper to say I was a free woman. But I didn’t need no piece of paper to tell me that. Do you need a piece of paper, Mr. Caesar?
These ain’t slavery times no more, Miss Tyler. You living in the past. All that done changed. The law done changed and I’m a custodian of the law. Now you know, Miss Tyler, you got to have rule of law otherwise there’d be chaos. Nobody wants to live in chaos.
