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Seven Guitars Theme Themes

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Seven Guitars is set Pittsburgh in 1948. In their colorful conversations, which are often laid with metaphors, the readers experience their dreams, heartbreaks, anger, and African American heritage. In Seven Guitars there are seven characters, the blues musician Floyd Barton, his two sidemen, or supporting musicians, drummer Red Carter and harmonica player Canewell, Floyd’s girlfriend Vera, and three people who live in Vera’s house: Louise, a middle- aged single woman whose beautiful young niece Ruby comes to stay with her, and King Hedley, a West Indian who lives in his dreams. Hedley believes that the blues singer Buddy Bolden would hand him his father’s legacy. The legacy need not necessarily mean money, it may mean the cultural legacy, …show more content…

For him, Chicago symbolizes the place where dreams are supposed to be fulfilled, but where nightmares occur instead. However, he was there before and made a hit record, but let himself be cheated by his manager and the recording company; instead of taking a cut of the profits, he accepted a flat fee. He dreams of becoming a famous and wealthy singer. He has a pattern of being irresponsible. He admits Vera is a special girl but when he went to Chicago the first time, he went with another girl, Pearl Brown. Now, unable to get the money because of certain unscrupulous people and his irresponsibility, Floyd robs a loan office and buys a ticket to Chicago for himself and his girlfriend, …show more content…

Excited Hedley grabs a board, bangs a nail, and ties a string, creating a one-string instrument that he plucks. These men make music out of nothing. They engage the physical burden and limitations of life through cultural expressions, through music, through song, through blues. The cultural ownership of the blues belongs particularly to blacks. This act of making one-string instrument by Hedley becomes evident that African American culture always involved adaptation, appropriation and hybridity. The blend of African American vernacular music traditions provides the opportunity for a physical consummation and spiritual attachment that allows people to see the gods in

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