The sound of the tom-tom is a recurring motif throughout the play, serving as an auditory signal of Brutus Jones’s emotions as he runs for his life and from his past. The drumbeat first appears in Scene 1:
[From the distant hills comes the faint, steady thump of a tom-tom, low and vibrating. It starts at a rate exactly corresponding to normal pulse beat—72 to the minute—and continues at a gradually accelerating rate from this point uninterruptedly to the very end of the play.] [JONES starts at the sound. A strange look of apprehension creeps into his face for a moment as he listens. Then he asks, with an attempt to regain his most casual manner.] What’s dat drum beatin’ fo’?
The sound of the tom-tom grows faster and more violent as Jones is forced to confront darker and darker truths, beating to the tempo of the story’s rising danger. The rate of the drumbeat “increases perceptibly” in Scene 2 the deeper Jones enters the forest, and it quickens as he faces the embodiment of his fears through the appearance of the formless creatures. In Scene 3, the tom-tom speeds up yet again, and by Scene 5 the sound becomes an “ominous throb” that hangs over the narrative. O’Neill’s use of sound to dictate mood and audience emotion is critical to the play’s success; the drumbeat grows louder and more threatening as the play progresses, ratcheting up the audience’s tension—until Scene 8, when all is suddenly quiet and Jones is dead:
Lem [Peremptorily]: Sssh! [The reports of several rifles sound from the forest, followed a second later by savage, exultant yells. The beating of the tom-tom abruptly ceases. LEM looks up at the white man with a grin of satisfaction.] We cotch him. Him dead.
Just as Jones’s heart no longer beats, neither does the tom-tom. As Lem’s words ring out on stage, unencumbered by background noise, this sudden absence of sound hammers home the finality of Jones’s death.
The sound of the tom-tom is a recurring motif throughout the play, serving as an auditory signal of Brutus Jones’s emotions as he runs for his life and from his past. The drumbeat first appears in Scene 1:
[From the distant hills comes the faint, steady thump of a tom-tom, low and vibrating. It starts at a rate exactly corresponding to normal pulse beat—72 to the minute—and continues at a gradually accelerating rate from this point uninterruptedly to the very end of the play.] [JONES starts at the sound. A strange look of apprehension creeps into his face for a moment as he listens. Then he asks, with an attempt to regain his most casual manner.] What’s dat drum beatin’ fo’?
The sound of the tom-tom grows faster and more violent as Jones is forced to confront darker and darker truths, beating to the tempo of the story’s rising danger. The rate of the drumbeat “increases perceptibly” in Scene 2 the deeper Jones enters the forest, and it quickens as he faces the embodiment of his fears through the appearance of the formless creatures. In Scene 3, the tom-tom speeds up yet again, and by Scene 5 the sound becomes an “ominous throb” that hangs over the narrative. O’Neill’s use of sound to dictate mood and audience emotion is critical to the play’s success; the drumbeat grows louder and more threatening as the play progresses, ratcheting up the audience’s tension—until Scene 8, when all is suddenly quiet and Jones is dead:
Lem [Peremptorily]: Sssh! [The reports of several rifles sound from the forest, followed a second later by savage, exultant yells. The beating of the tom-tom abruptly ceases. LEM looks up at the white man with a grin of satisfaction.] We cotch him. Him dead.
Just as Jones’s heart no longer beats, neither does the tom-tom. As Lem’s words ring out on stage, unencumbered by background noise, this sudden absence of sound hammers home the finality of Jones’s death.
