Joe Turner’s Come and Gone: Act One: Scene Four Summary & Analysis

Although Herald’s averse reaction to the boarders’ song about the Holy Ghost is at first hard to understand, it comes to signal his resistance to anything that references domination or subordination. Indeed, in this moment he takes issue with God’s almightiness, lamenting that God is “big” and asking why He has to be so much “bigger” than him. Above all, this denotes a discomfort with authority, as if Herald can’t bear to think that somebody (or something) could rule over him. Furthermore, his aversion to the Juba suggests that he wants nothing to do with something that recalls slavery. His overall reaction culminates in a bold move as he unzips his pants, clearly wanting to assert his masculinity by belittling the idea that something like religion or slavery might force him into submission.

There’s something of a supernatural connection between Bynum and Herald here. The nature of their conversation is interesting, as Bynum encourages Herald to relate his vision using a call-and-response method of storytelling, in which he himself—the listener—actually participates in the telling of the tale. This is relevant to the play’s interest in racism and slavery because slaves often used to sing using call-and-response. As such, while Herald initially bristled at hearing the Juba because it harkened back to the “African slaves,” he now finds himself encouraged by this old technique, which very directly arises out of slavery. In this way, Wilson suggests that, try as he might, Herald cannot stand outside of the country’s painful history.

Bynum’s strange ability to partake in the telling of Herald’s vision further establishes their supernatural connection. Indeed, it’s as if Bynum is already familiar with the experience Herald is going through, a notion made even more apparent by the fact that Herald describes the setting of his vision as a place full of “water that was bigger than the whole world.” This phrasing recalls the way Bynum described his own mystical experience of learning his song; when he turned the corner with the shiny man, he entered a place that was “bigger than life.” This ties these two characters together, and although Wilson doesn’t yet make clear the significance of their analogous spiritual experiences, it becomes evident  that Bynum’s worldview will most likely eventually shed light on Loomis’s strange disposition.

The image of these unknown black people—assembled by the bones on the shore—standing up and “walking toward the road” is illustrative of the mass migration taking place in the decades after slavery. Indeed, just as ex-slaves and their ancestors start making their way out of the South, these mysterious bone-people start assembling themselves and setting off to start new lives. Unfortunately, though, Loomis himself is unable to even stand up, a notion that suggests he can’t seem to find a foothold in this world, which is still shifting and taking form. That he can’t use his own legs denotes his inability to attain agency and self-possession, and yet he knows he can’t remain lying in one spot because everybody else is “walking every whichaway down the road,” going on with their lives and leaving him to struggle on his own.