2 page essay
In the Blood, written by Suzan-Lori Parks (a student of James Baldwin), is a modern day version of The Scarlett Letter and a response to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 that greatly addressed welfare reform. The exploitation and demonization of the main character, Hester, a homeless African American mother of five children from five different fathers, shines a light on the vulnerable conditions of homeless women. In the Blood will have the audience pondering the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and privilege. Suzan-Lori Parks is the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Drama (2002) and she also received a MacArthur “Genius” Award (2001).
Write a two page response to the play.
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In the Blood
Tragedy follows Hester La Negrita, the protagonist of Park’s In the Blood play, as relentlessly it does to the queens Euripides and Racine. Performed with exquisitely clouded radiance the illiterate Hester probably could not presume to talk in such pretentious terms. As much as she is portrayed trying to live her hardest, she intuits that destiny will be ruthless with her. In question is the impoverished mother of five, disturbed by past lovers and the world whose limits she inhabits weakly.
At some time in the city, Hester can see the total solar eclipse that is visible to her only. By her remarks, the description is endowed with a raptness that stops time, and the abject figure receives majesty.
(582 words)