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The Destruction of the Natural World
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Jerusalem, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The people who visit Johnny “Rooster” Byron—many of them teenagers—come to him in search of alcohol, drugs, and experimentation. Throughout Jerusalem, multiple people accuse Johnny of providing an environment that recklessly endangers minors. While much of Johnny’s behavior is dubious (not to mention illegal), the play frames him as an antihero who isn’t afraid to disrupt the social hierarchy and challenge authority to protect society’s vulnerable outcasts.
Early in the play, Wesley, a local bar owner, criticizes Johnny for letting teenagers drink on his land. In response, Johnny calls Wesley a hypocrite because he knows Wesley lets underage kids into his bar all the time. What’s more, Johnny claims that he is providing those who come to him with a valuable service: a safe place to engage in reckless behavior—or, at least, safer than some of the other areas they might visit. As rough as his lifestyle may be, he insists, it is better than what the young people who come to him have at home. Otherwise, they would not come to him in the first place. This is true not only for the young characters like Pea and Tonya, but also Wesley himself. Wesley comes to Johnny in search of drugs and a sympathetic ear when his stressful work life overwhelms him.
Johnny’s defense of his defiance of authority is particularly convincing when the play later offers more details about the homelife of Phaedra, a teenage girl who has been missing since the start of the play. Eventually, it’s revealed she has been staying with Johnny the entire time, having sought refuge there from her abusive stepfather, Troy. In providing Phaedra with shelter, Johnny once more demonstrates a willingness to challenge traditional hierarchies of power, protecting a young girl against an abusive authority figure. As such, although the broader community treats Johnny as a menace and a corrupting force, the play suggests that he performs a valuable role, challenging authority and accepting and protecting society’s outcasts and misfits when no one else will.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…
Authority ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Authority appears in each act of Jerusalem. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
How often theme appears:
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Authority Quotes in Jerusalem
Below you will find the important quotes in Jerusalem related to the theme of Authority .
Act 1
Quotes
DAVEY: You know what I reckon. I reckon she’s been got by a werewolf. She’s been turned away from The ‘Rakers, wandered off into the night, in tears, whereupon a werewolf has heard her tragic sobs, and he’s followed her through the brush and he’s pounced. He’s torn her arms and legs off and eaten her virgin heart. Seriously. In a day or two, someone’ll find a bloody patch of turf in a clearing, with just these pink fairy wings flapping in the breeze.
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
DAVEY: They’ve got a point, though, haven’t they? I’m not being funny, right, but if you’re sat in your brand-new house you’ve sweat your bollocks off to buy, and find out four hundred yards away there’s some ogre living in a wood…I bet it never said in the brochure: ‘Detached house, three beds with garden overlooking wood with free troll. Free ogre what loves trance music, deals cheap spliff and whizz, don’t pay no tax, and has probably got AIDS. Guaranteed non-stop aggravation and danger.’ I bet that weren’t in the brochure.
GINGER: He’s dead. They pronounce him stone dead. St. John’s put a blanket over him. Paperwork, everything. All the mums are crying, how they should build a statue to him in the town square, when suddenly everyone turns round and he’s gone. He’s vanished. There’s just a blanket with nothing under it. They follow this trail of blood across the field, past the whirler-swirler, into the beer tent, up to the bar, where he’s stood there finishing a pint of Tally-Ho.
JOHNNY: They’re fifteen-, sixteen-year-old kids. Course they’re bloodying drinking. It’s not like you don’t serve kids. Bloody What’s-it’s Stringer, sat at the bar, he’s fourteen year old. Orderin’ Maker’s Mark and Coke.
Act 2
Quotes
DAWN: I get here and you’re sitting around, getting pissed with a bunch of kids. The police are coming. They’re going to bulldoze this place. You’re having a party.
DAWN: Just make sure there’s nothing in there when the police get here. Just do that for your son. Me, I don’t care. I don’t want him growing up on the bus to and from prison.
TROY: And, you know what they done? They undone their flies and they pissed on you too. All overs you. On your face. In your hair. In your mouth. Took photos with their phones. Sent it to everyone. I bet Lee there’s got it on his phone. Pea. Tanya. I know Davey has. He filmed it. Show him, Davey. Show Rooster what you done. They told me all the stories, Rooster. Took me right back. Nothing changes up here.
Act 3
Quotes
FAWCETT: This land belongs to Kennet and Avon Council.
JOHNNY: Says who?
FAWCETT: The law, Mr. Byron. The English law. I am showing the recipient a legally recognised petition of local complainants concerning the illegal encampment and activities hereabouts.
JOHNNY: School is a lie. Prison’s a waste of time. Girls are wondrous. Grab your fill. No man was ever lain in his barrow wishing he’d loved one less woman. Don’t listen to no one and nothing but what your own heart bids. Lie. Cheat. Steal. Fight to the death. Don’t give up. Show me your teeth.
