SOURCE: "Archetypes in LeRoi Jones' 'Dutchman,'" in Studies in Black Literature, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring, 1970, pp. 66-8.

In the following article, Reck examines archetypal symbolism in "Dutchman," and argues that Baraka's play pities the white world, leaving Lula stuck in it and setting Clay free through death.

Most viewers and readers of LeRoi Jones' play "Dutchman" acknowledge its power and recognize the timeliness of the theme. No one has really shown, however, how the elements of myth which it contains make it, at least in a literary way, considerably more than a topical drama of American Racial strife. Newsweek magazine in its review gave token recognition to the quality of myth which raises "Dutchman" "above sociology" to something that is "perennial among men: the exploitation of one another for satisfaction of dreams and hungers"; but it did not analyze Jones' use of myth very specifically.

The stage action...