'Exploring Rita Dove’s “The Darker Face of the Earth”\r'

'â€Å"An expert poet, a creative horizontal sur cause writer and adept at writing scripts of various genres”; all issues, which accommodate the humanity filled with writings. This is sensation of the gorgeous ways of de ductating the cause of an the Statesn poet and author, Rita Frances come down. â€Å"I think the worst involvement that can happen to a poet is to be self-conscious, to think, ‘I’m writing a poem’ the scrap that you’re writing a poem.” With all this line, as quoted by Ingersoll (2003) during an interview held at the University Press of Mississippi, Rita descend shows her philosophical adage and belief about the midpoint of every event happening around her.It merely signifies that whatever things come along the way should be get ton an explicit notion whether it could bring acceptable and a noteworthy happening or an wayward occurrence. In separate words, exploring the neer-ending queries that come to her bear in mind is what makes her per passwordality an avid â€Å"truth seeker” to abide by the trus iirthy significance of her surroundings. For a bust intelligence about where her liveness revolves around and to what principle does it lie, her convey entitle â€Å"The Darker lawsuit of the footing” explains how descend exploits the myth Oedipus Rex for her own purpose.As a writer who delves into the stone of knowledge, she brings more than(prenominal) insightful prospects with regard to the modern issues arising from her community†essay to comp argon the huge difference or resemblance between all char toyers of the two stories, The Darker feeling of the Earth and Oedipus Rex.Significance of the Play ‘The Darker flavour of the Earth’Her notion c at oncerning the concoction of races films her to creating a more compelling twist, which she entitled ‘The Darker Face of the Earth’ (Pereira). Hence, her views concern marriage, coh abitation, or cozy telling between a lily-white fewone and a member of another race. Such a aspect comes from the event, which has grown place in the late twentieth century America (â€Å"History of knuckle downry in America starts in 15th century atomic chassis 63: The Cincinnati Enquirer,” Bauer).As an analysis of the mulct’s title, Dove picks it from one of the lines in the shadowy market depicting intimate converse between two different racesâ€White and grim: â€Å"When the pear blossoms / cast their pale faces on / the darker face of the earth” (1st ed. 76). Augustus, a mulatto (the first-generation off border of a dull case-by-case and a white per tidings) delivers this line as he explicates about his notion on miscegenation. A variety of scholars that criticize the play focuses more on the usage of ‘cast’ in the line, which connotes that the presence of hurt small-arm using the â€Å"pale faces” on â€Å"darker f ace(s)” is inevitable.Therefore, the line is simply a representation of rapes done by the white men to the number of raw women anterior to the American Civil state of war. Such coercive conference between a white person and a member of another race is emotionally or psychologically untroubled in the play. For a better comprehension, much(prenominal)(prenominal) kind of relation backship is shown in the play where Amalia, the white plantation mistress, finds the way to having a sexual intercourse with the knuckle down crocked-arm.As a result, the existence of Augustus, the mulatto, is however inevitable. Based on the play, his mother Amalia willingly finds measures exclusively to obtain a sexual intercourse with boss around in response to her husband Louis, who have set on striver girls (1st ed. 14-16).The Darker Face of the Earth begins the flow of its story with the Augustus’s natal day to Amalia Jennings LaFarge, a white striver mistress, from a sexual i ntercourse with the black break ones back Hector. Augustus is obviously born with have characteristics of more than one kindâ€White and Black races.With tempestuous or turbulent characteristics, Louis LaFarge makes way so that mass may never acknowledge Augustus as Amalia’s child. The couple tells the people that her child died at present in spite of the fact that a define takes him away with an aim at raising fluff Augustus as a slave. Consequently, Hector becomes devastated by grief. Helplessly, he does not know what to do with his life; torment overshadows his life for a number of years.Augustus’s fatherlike white prevail gives him the twenty years of discipline and various kinds of journey from different places; hence, he experiences combined cultural aspects. No later than this period, the white master brings the twenty-year old Augustus to the Jennings even though he knows that this son of Amalia had an insurrection lately. Unknowing that Amalia is h is mother for he has once told that he was a child of a slave woman, who had been raped by his white master; he begins an affair with his biological mother.Nevertheless, there is one slave woman secernd Phebe who desires an affair with him but it does not take too long as another slave Scylla tells him about the possible outcome of their affair that would lead him in a veritable demise. He comprehends to what Scylla tells him; however, he unintentionally kills Hector when he becomes involved in a rebellion. He does not know that Hector is his biological father to Amalia; thus, he puts his father to certain demise in order to prevent him from divulging the machination, which has bonny taken place between him and Amalia.Ultimately, he has been consistent to kill Amalia that makes him troubled. However, he thinks Louis LaFarge is his father so he kills him. In spite of that fact, Amalia tells him the reality, and whilst in a unafraid position of doing so, her son learns that she and Hector are his parentsâ€a fact that he has just learned and established to be all machinated.As an analysis of such circumstances, it becomes rather easy to learn that there is the presence of sexual intercourse between a white person and a member of another race; hence, a mulatto or the first-generation offspring of a black person and a white person comes to existenceâ€Augustus, the son of whom he links to. ‘The Darker Face of the Earth’ and ‘Oedipus Rex’The Darker Face of the Earth is a tarradiddle of Sophocles’s period of play entitled ‘Oedipus Rex’ that is shaped from the image of a pre-Civil War plantation near Charleston, South Carolina. Like Oedipus Rex, the play harmoniously relates the loveliness and royalty of the old archetype of legendary conspiracy as Dove portrays the stupendous authority, an belowlying cause of change when it comes to erotic occurrences. Moreover, the play is not created from the Oedipus myth but also from the real events of slavery in the 15th century America (â€Å"History of slavery in America starts in 15th century Europe: The Cincinnati Enquirer,” Bauer).One of the most fundamental events happens in the play is that concerns with the critical scene in which Amalia interviews Augustus, her newly purchased slave (â€Å"The Darker Face of the Earth: all Revised Second Edition,” Dove). Amalia listens as the new slave sings â€Å"the sorrow songs,” and explaining, â€Å"They dont need a psalm book.” (2nd ed. 82). hitherto his explication, he gives assurance on his own literacy; lists the books of his plastic education: â€Å"Milton. The Bible. / And the Tales of the Greeks” (2nd ed. 83). Amalia holds the book and reads about â€Å"Tales of the Greeks”.While interpreting the contents, Amalia tries to secern the latest event, which she learned through both newspaper publisher and word of mouth accounts particularly whe n it comes to the story of slavery. However, she revises some of the events happened in the history in order to make it suitable to her present life. As the conversation of the two continues, Augustus narrates his personal history about slavery (2nd ed. 89-90). Mean temporary hookup, they listen to Amalia’s husband, Louis LaFarge in his room while reading the night sky for portents (2nd ed. 87-88). Therefore, as a result, such a scene brings about the fact that Amalia and Augustus are embracing, according to Pereira (2003).Nevertheless, prior to such an embrace, Augustus turns poetical as he reads an imaginary past portraying Amalia’s views of his personal notion: â€Å"One soft spring night when the pear blossoms cast their pale faces on the darker face of the earth, Massa stood up from the porch swing and said to himself, â€Å"I think Ill make me another bright-eyed pick-aninny.” Then he stretched and headed for my mothers cabin.” (2nd ed. 92).Therefor e, Augustus makes a certain fictionalized interpretation of his personal life by means of verbal imagery. This is to say that, such narration of his own life opposes much of the real experiences and circumstances with regard to his nativity. Moreover, even though Augustus is indeed a child who is born by the conjugation of combined bloodsâ€a white and a black slave, still it is a union of love, and is not achieved by force or threat or some(prenominal) act of compelling. Furthermore, as to his story, his mother is white while his father is black. Hence, the presence of an irony on his narration is obviously overshadowing the story.The Darker Face of the Earth has a confusable involvement of sexual intercourse between persons so closely related that law forbids them to marry or the statutory crime of such a relationship. The trust of slavery by contradicting the marriage to the slave and by restraining sexual interest in intermediate relation to a slave and a master, contra dicts authority to give the title father, mother, sister, or brother with conviction and reality.On the other hand, in Oedipus Rex, the so called, ‘King’ never mentions the name of his parents because of his ‘sexual intercourse between persons so closely related that law forbids them to marry’ or ‘the statutory crime of such a relationship’ and the act of murdering his or her father, mother, or a close congeneric (Sterren, M.D.). Therefore, The Darker Face of the Earth remains bold and strong without the presence of a king or Oedipus Rex.The Darker Face of the Earth comes after the prototype but not the story line of Oedipus Rex. Based on likeness of the two stories, Sophocles begins the flow of his story with the vision of a comprehensive constitutional king or queen. For a better comprehension, Oedipus appears as a stranger to his city, which is under his rules. Moreover, Thebes is permitted as a right or fringe benefit by the former king in cost of marriage as a sort of hire for solving an enigma in a murderous Sphinx.The story begins with the appearance of tranquility; however, the entire city is ravaged by the plague. In addition, Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. However, Dove begins his play with the birth of an Oedipusâ€Augustus, the child of an African slave named Hector and Amalia Jennings.ConclusionWhen it comes to analyzing a variety of poems, dramas, and plays, a number of critics and scholars believe that The Darker Face of the Earth and Oedipus Rex make contemporary issues with regard to slavery and racial union a world of antiquity, which continues to revolve. Despite of the fact that two authors, Dove and Sophocles, create a harmonious flow of the story, moreover the presence of some sorts of variation in price of the story’s themes and lines become inevitable callable to the environment or scene in which the characters race and play their roles. Dove’s 1994 play entitled ‘The Darker Face of the Earth’ mirrors numerous themes or esthetic representations and certain machinations or contrivances, which take place in an ancient Greek play by Sophocles’s ‘Oedipus Rex’.In The Darker Face of the Earth, there is the presence of ignorance and anger as the issue that concerns with slavery is much concerned. Intelligence never completes this play, as the characters seem to be marked by a lack of restraint although some events are not coercive. However, there is the presence of these themes in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex; intelligence overshadows the characters, as they do every thing in accordance with the right way†no merciless qualities. In both plays, fortune obviously works as the protagonists act as victims while doing the part of voluntary agents. Hence, the fortune of every individual works out with his personal behavior without concentrate on his culture. Although Oedipus and Augustus exist in differe nt ways, to that extent they have the choice to control their fortune.\r\n'