The Emperor Jones

Eugene O'Neill · 1920 CE · Play · Modern / American · Modernist

Brutus Jones, a Pullman porter who killed a man over dice, escaped a chain gang and made himself emperor of a Caribbean island inside two years, learns from his white trader that the people have gone up into the hills and a drum has started. He takes to the forest with a silver bullet in his revolver, counting on a straight road to the coast and a cache of food he buried against exactly this day. Across six near-wordless scenes the drum holds the pulse rate of a frightened man and the trees give back the chain gang, the auction block and the hold of a slave ship.

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