The Identity of the African American Culture The play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom highlights some of the reason African American lost their connection to the culture they once had. The play talks of the influence of different culture and how the melting pot may have caused the loss of African culture in the west. But among all the confusion the African-American has kept their love in of art and has overcome many of hardship to keep an identity in the American culture; the play itself shows this through its characters, plot and diction. This why Ma Rainey’s black bottom has such a powerful spotlight put on it and its way of telling the its story.
We start with the very important and always needed the characters of the story. The characters themselves brings out the reasons behind the identity crisis that African American faced at the time and highlights the hardship they faced as well as how importance it effected then as people in the play. The characters are the focal point that brings the play to live and shows the loss of culture and the search of who they are in the land that doesn’t
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The diction in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom depicted the characters’ actions and manner tours one other and gave an insight of the kind of style of life they were living in. Ma Rainey’s line about how she will never give her music away shows her resilience and understand of her role and culture in her profession. The diction in the play really separated the characters apart from one other so we knew their standing and beliefs in their culture as well as their lack of understanding for each other. We can see that the diction they use shows how much each person had to gain and lose such a levee’s fail attempt to become a great musician and his past. So much of the plays ideas and culture came from the diction so it played an important in understanding the