In this excerpt, Nelson compares Jones's play to the legend of the flying Dutchman. He also explains how the playwright employs facets of the legend to create both modern myth and contemporary truth.

Leroi Jones describes the setting for his short play, Dutchman, with a significant metaphor: "In the flying underbelly of the city. Steaming hot, and summer on top, outside. Underground. The subway heaped in modem myth." The play's title supplemented by these provocative hints and allusions would lead one to believe that the action might be illuminated by examining It in terms of the various renderings of the legend of "the Flying Dutchman." It is my feeling that Jones has made complex use of the "Dutchman" theme in converting it into modem myth. The two major figures, Clay and Lula, are not the colorless characters of allegory; their symbolic relationship as revealed by the "Flying...