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The Bill of Sale
The mystical City of Bones—which is inhabited by the souls of enslaved Africans who died on slave ships—symbolizes the unexpected benefits of uniting with others in a sense of shared suffering. When Aunt Ester helps Citizen Barlow visit the City of Bones, he has a chance to experience the horror that many enslaved Africans underwent on the slave ships. He looks around at one point and realizes that everyone around him in the hold of a slave ship bound for the City of Bones has his own face—a symbolic representation of the fact that he’s witnessing his own history, or at least the history of something that has a direct impact on his life in the present. Although he himself has never been enslaved, he has experienced racism and discrimination that is directly tied to the lasting effects of slavery in the United States. Interestingly enough, his terrifying journey to the City of Bones ends up helping him immensely, making him feel at peace with himself. Part of this has to do with the fact that he confronts Garret Brown in the City of Bones, thus owning up to his guilt about having wronged him. But another element of his sudden transformation has to do with the experience of communing with people who have gone through much more intense suffering than he himself has encountered. By contextualizing his own hardship, then, he manages to move forward with his life, and the City of Bones itself comes to represent how helpful it can be to engage with one’s own cultural history.
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The City of Bones Symbol Timeline in Gem of the Ocean
The timeline below shows where the symbol The City of Bones appears in Gem of the Ocean. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1, Scene 5
...Citizen that she’s going to help him. She’s going to show him a place called the City of Bones . First, though, he has to go out and find two pennies lying side by...
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Act 2, Scene 1
...which there is a map. She points to a part of this map and identifies the City of Bones , where everything is made from bone. Aunt Ester has been there. Her mother, her...
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Inside the City of Bones , Aunt Ester says, the people sing with burning tongues. There are 10,000 people, all...
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...ride in this boat. If he believes that the tiny boat will take him to the City of Bones , then it will. If he wants to have his soul washed, he’ll have to...
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Act 2, Scene 2
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...
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...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...
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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...
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...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...
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...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...
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...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.
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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...
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