Previous
Act 2, Scene 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gem of the Ocean, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Meaning of Freedom
Economic Exploitation
The Value of Community
History and Trauma
The Power of Belief
Summary
Analysis
While Citizen and Aunt Ester prepare themselves for the City of Bones, Eli and Black Mary wait in the kitchen. Solly arrives to say goodbye before heading south, and Eli talks to him about how he should stay away from the cities, since white people have blocked off so many of the metropolitan areas in an attempt to keep Black people from leaving. When Citizen returns, Solly talks to him about the City of Bones—he has been there himself and knows that it’s where he’s going when he dies.
Solly’s knowledge of the City of Bones presents the mystical city as a place that multiple people in the Hill District are familiar with. It is, then, a communal place that isn’t necessarily something to fear, even though it’s inhabited by the spirits of enslaved Africans who died on slave ships. The fact that Solly thinks he’ll end up in the City of Bones when he's dead implies that the city is a place for all Black people who have suffered racism and oppression, framing it as a safe space where everyone is united in a sense of shared suffering.
Themes
Solly remarks that Citizen no longer has to pay the mill what he owes it. Citizen says that forcing people to owe money is worse than slavery, but Solly vehemently disputes this idea—he was enslaved himself. He pulls out a chain link and explains that he carries it for good luck. It used to be around his ankle, but he managed to escape enslavement. He fled north and made it to Canada in 1857, but as soon as he arrived, he broke down. He knew he’d found freedom, but he didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t feel like he could truly embrace freedom while his mother and everyone else was still in bondage, so he told the people who smuggled him north to take him back. From then on, he worked on the Underground Railroad.
Solly sees freedom as meaningless unless everyone is free. Although he managed to escape enslavement, he couldn’t revel in his newfound liberty because he knew that so many Black people were still suffering in bondage. For him, freedom is worthless on an individual level, which is why he's so selfless when it comes to helping other people, as evidenced by his willingness to travel to Alabama to help his sister even though the journey will be treacherous.
Themes
The walking stick Solly carries has 62 notches on it—one for each person he freed. He used to work with Eli to help people come north. The workers on the Underground Railroad were responsible for their own stretch of 200 miles, which they would help escapees navigate. After 200 miles, they would hand the escapees off to the next “conductor.” Solly often had to face down bloodthirsty dogs. He shows Citizen scars from fighting the animals off. If he didn’t make a living selling “pure,” he thinks he’d probably kill every dog he saw.
When Solly shows Citizen his scars, he reveals his willingness to make tangible sacrifices in the name of helping other people. And yet, these intense experiences clearly still impacted him in a major way, burdening him with a certain trauma that he navigates by selling “pure,” which is the only way he can avoid taking out his anger on innocent dogs, since he still associates them with racist violence.
Themes
Solly soon learned it wasn’t such a big deal to bleed. It’s possible to lose quite a bit of blood without dying, he says. He got used to that idea, which helped him fight off the dogs. As Solly and Eli talk about the Underground Railroad, Eli pours them all some whiskey, saying that Citizen deserves a drink because he's about to visit the City of Bones. As the three men drink, Solly talks about Emancipation, saying that it never actually achieved what it was supposed to achieve. Instead of slavery, the country now uses the law to oppress Black Americans. The current conditions have made it so that many Black people have nothing to lose, which is something Caesar doesn’t understand.
The Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, officially granting legal freedom to all enslaved people. However, signing something into law doesn’t necessarily make it so, which is what Solly points out when he says that Emancipation failed to bring about true freedom. His ideas highlight the ways in which oppressive practices haven’t disappeared in the decades since slavery. Rather, they’ve simply transformed, as the country’s power structures perpetuate racist discrimination in less obvious ways. When Solly suggests that the circumstances in the United States have made it so that Black people have nothing to lose, he hints that the current system is untenable and destined to collapse.
Themes
Get the entire Gem of the Ocean LitChart as a printable PDF.
Solly and Eli agree that white people fought the Civil War for their own reasons. Although the Union Army’s efforts ultimately put an end to slavery and—in that way—benefited Black people, it was clear that Black Americans would have to fend for themselves after the war. Solly recognized that this would happen from the very start of the war, knowing that the interests of white northerners and Black people would only overlap for a little while.
There’s a prominent narrative in the United States that celebrates northern white people for fighting to abolish slavery. It’s true that the Union Army did a great thing by fighting the Civil War and putting an end to slavery, but Solly suggests that it’s also true that the Union had other reasons to fight the war—after all, the South wanted to secede, so there were political reasons driving the Union’s war efforts. What this suggests, then, is that Black Americans living in the decades after slavery still had to face considerable racism and discrimination, which was still very much alive even in the northern states.
Themes
Aunt Ester enters the kitchen and asks Solly to help Citizen on his journey to the City of Bones. Solly is eager to make his way toward his sister in Alabama, but he agrees to help Citizen before he leaves. He won’t be the only one helping Citizen; Eli, Black Mary, and Aunt Ester will also be there to guide him as he travels to the City of Bones on the small boat Aunt Ester made out of a Bill of Sale. The boat is called the Gem of the Ocean, and Aunt Ester says that people can never have “enough help” when they’re on it, which is why it’s important for Solly and everyone else to be there for Citizen as he makes the journey.
Solly’s willingness to delay his trip to Alabama in order to help Citizen once again spotlights his kindness. He’s someone who strongly believes in helping others when they’re in need, so he can’t turn away from Citizen. To that end, Aunt Ester’s suggestion that people can never have “enough help” on the Gem of the Ocean implies a sense of shared suffering that took place on the slave ships, as enslaved Africans experienced a communal travesty.
Themes
Handing him the paper boat, Aunt Ester tells Citizen to hold onto it tightly. She also gives him the two pennies he found, saying he’s going to need them. Jilson Grant was supposed to give him a piece of iron, but Citizen will have to make do without it—but then Solly offers him the lucky chain link he has carried with him since slavery. Once he’s ready, everyone except Citizen starts singing a song about going to the City of Bones. Over their voices, Aunt Ester speaks vividly about the Gem of the Ocean, describing its movements as it’s tossed back and forth in the water by a strong wind. Taken in by her words, Citizen suddenly feels as if he’s on the boat.
The power of belief is on full display in this scene, as Citizen loses himself in Aunt Ester’s words so much that he can actually feel the motions of the slave ship. Whether or not Aunt Ester actually has any mystical or spiritual powers is more or less beside the point, since what really matters is whether or not Citizen believes in the journey she has sent him on—and, of course, he does believe in that journey.
Themes
Guided by Aunt Ester, Citizen describes what he sees while standing on the Gem of the Ocean. The sky is blue, but there are dark clouds on the horizon. Aunt Ester tells him to take refuge from the oncoming weather by going below deck. He follows her directions and finds himself in a dark hold, where he can hear people singing about going to a graveyard (Eli, Solly, and Black Mary sing these words in the background of the scene). The song also suggests to Citizen that the people below deck remember him, and then he realizes he has been chained to the boat (Eli and Solly grab him and constrain him). His eyes adjust to the darkness, and now he can see that the people down there all look like him—they all have his face.
When Citizen looks around and sees that all of the people below deck have his own face, there’s a very visceral sense of shared suffering. He seems to realize in this moment his own connection to the horrors of slavery, even though he himself was never enslaved. The problems he faces in his own life, the play implies, are all connected to the horrors and injustices of slavery, which continue to reverberate into the present.
Themes
Citizen panics, but Black Mary tries to soothe him by telling him to take a deep breath. He asks her where he is, and she reminds him that he’s on a boat headed to the City of Bones—a fact that terrifies him. He throws the paper boat on the ground, but Aunt Ester reminds him that he can’t go to the City of Bones without it, so he tries his best to crawl toward it, feeling rocked back and forth by a storm. Before he can pick it up, Solly and Eli grab him and whip him (it feels real to him, but they just pantomime the act).
Although Citizen’s initial reaction to boarding the Gem of the Ocean was one of curiosity and confusion, he now becomes terrified. What’s more, he experiences real pain and torture, thus putting him in touch with the horrific experience his ancestors underwent on board the slave ships hundreds of years ago.
Themes
Eli and Solly throw Citizen into the hull and slam the hatch shut. He begs for water, but Aunt Ester says there isn’t any—all he has is his lucky chain link. The captain of the ship abandoned it and took all its supplies, leaving everyone else to die. However, she says, the people onboard have managed to survive. And because he survived, Citizen should make the most of his life. As Aunt Ester says this, Citizen looks up and sees the City of Bones. He’s struck by its gleaming beauty.
Oddly enough, the harrowing feeling of riding on a slave ship ends up turning into a beautiful experience for Citizen, who suddenly has a renewed appreciation for his own life. Although he has undergone great hardship, it’s unlikely that anything will compare to what it felt like to be whipped by enslavers in the dark, crowded hold of a slave ship.
Themes
Citizen goes to one of the City of Bones’s 12 gatekeepers and gives him the two pennies, but the gatekeeper won’t let him pass. Aunt Ester asks if he knows the gatekeeper, and he’s horrified to see that it’s Garret Brown. Aunt Ester urges Citizen to tell Garret Brown the truth, so he confesses that he was the one to steal the bucket of nails. The gatekeeper lets him pass. Inside the City of Bones, Citizen is overwhelmed by the beauty and feels like he has been reborn.
In a way, the entire journey to the City of Bones is a way for Citizen to confront the man he wronged: Garret Brown. In doing so, he takes responsibility for his own actions. Whereas Garret Brown “died in truth,” Citizen was forced because of his own decisions to live as a dishonest man whose actions led to the death of an innocent person. Now that he has confessed to Garret Brown, though, he can move on with his life. What’s more, the trip has put him in touch with the shared suffering of the many Black people who died on the slave ships, showing him that—though life is terribly hard in a racist society—he, too, might eventually experience an afterlife in the City of Bones, where racism and oppression can no longer touch him.
Themes
Citizen’s journey is over. He looks around and asks where he is, and Black Mary reminds him that he’s in Aunt Ester’s house. Just then, Caesar enters and informs Solly that he’s under arrest, claiming that someone saw him set the mill on fire. But then Solly hits Caesar in the knee with his walking stick and runs out the door. Caesar yells after him, saying that he’ll bring Solly to justice soon enough.
Lighting the mill on fire perfectly aligns with Solly’s unwillingness to ignore oppression—even when it doesn’t impact him directly. He doesn’t work at the mill, but he recognized its exploitative practices, so he took it upon himself to fight back. Once again, then, his community-minded worldview is on full display, as he demonstrates that he sees freedom as meaningless unless it applies to everyone.
Themes
