St. Paul's Kitchen Analysis

The play takes place in four different places, a New York subway, the Tower of London, St. Peter’s Basilica and Harlem hotel. Kolin maintains that while each of these four locations is vastly different geographically and culturally, they merge in she’s mind to express the racial, religious and political conflicts in her subconscious” (55).By examining Clara’s life, the play discusses several important issues. Clara’s subway adventures stand for sexual issues which entrap Clara at times that lead Clara to face fear as the meeting of the Negro man. In her search for love, Clara picks men in the subway and takes them to Harlem hotel. Yet the love she actually needs is the love and acceptance of her father and her white ancestors. In fact,

Paul’s chapel expresses Clara’s need for salvation and she seeks to have it by the white man’s religion. She tries to find salvation by the white culture but she is denied that help too. She cannot pass through her transformation into Virgin Marry as her mother wants her to be. Throughout the play, we find out that the mother is obsessed with her sexual purity rather than her racial oppression. She idealizes the image of Virgin Mary as a symbol of chastity that religion calls

While the mother wants to go back to the chapel as an imaginary journey toward her pure sinless self, Clara’s trial to enter the chapel is a symbol of her desire to be accepted into white community. The chapel, as Clara sees, is a religious institution that offers her the resolution of her suffering and entering it means her acceptance as a member of the white world. Clara’s deep longing to pass white and to be accepted by her father leads her to imagine a journey with him to England where he dies and she is denied as his legal ancestor to attend his funeral. She is imprisoned in the tower of London by three historical figures; William the conqueror, Shakespeare and Chaucer. In the tower of London, Clara meets Ann Boleyn and asks her for help.

SHE. Anne, Anne Boleyn. (throws rice upon SHE WHO IS CLARA PASSMORE WHO IS VIRGIN MARY WHO IS THE BASTARD WHO IS THE OWL) Anne, you know so much of love; won’t you help me? They took my father away and will not let me? They took my father away and will not let me see him. They locked me in this tower and I see them taking his body across the chapel to be buried and see his white hair hanging down. Let me into the chapel. He is my blood father. I am almost white, am I not? Let me into St. Paul’s chapel. Let me please go down to St. Paul’s chapel. I