The Jungle (Sarah's Father and Patrice Lumumba)
Sarah's Father
Significance in Plot
The character of the father does not have any lines and is actually not performed by anyone. He is simply mentioned by the other characters throughout the play, but he is a core part of the entire story. He is made out to be the antagonist in Sarah's mind, but whether he is the antagonist or the innocent victim is ambiguous.
Profile
Name: Wally
Ethnicity: Black
Appearance: "He is black of skin with dark eyes and a great dark square brow." (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 16)
Education: Degree in Social Work
Work: Missionary teacher now dedicating his life to the erection of a Christian mission in the middle of the jungle, in newly freed African countries
Relationship with Parents
His mother and father had different opinions about Africa
Mother: "I want you to be Jesus, to walk in Genesis and save the race. You must return to Africa, find revelation in the midst of golden savannas, nim and dwhite frankopenny trees, white stallions roaming under a blue sky, you must walk with a white dove and heal the race, heal the misery, take us off the cross." (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 16)
Father "the race [is] no damn good" (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 16)
It says that he "hated his father and adored his mother" (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 16), which actually is very similar to how his daughter, Sarah, hates him and adores her mother.
Symbol of the Chicken
"At dawn he watched her rise, kill a hen for him to eat at breakfast, then go to work down at the big house till dusk, till she died." (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 16)
"His mother didn't want him to marry my mother and sent a dead chicken to the wedding." (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 16)
A hen usually symbolizes motherhood and familial love. This may be because of the association of the hen sitting on its egg and tending to it until it is ready to hatch.
Therefore, the act of the mother killing a hen for her son's breakfast symbolizes her willingness to sacrifice her life to support her family and put food on the table.
On the other hand, the act of the mother sending a dead chicken to the wedding may symbolize the overbearingness of her love and expectation for her son. It implies that his choice to marry the woman he loves instead of following her expectations is an attack on her life. With the amount of love Wally has for his mother, the amount of pressure she puts on him haunts him for a long time. We can see this when he starts hallucinating after coming back to New York and imagines his mother throwing a dead chicken at him.
Comparison to Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ is believed in the Christian faith to be the only human to have never sinned in his life. This was a feat only possible by Jesus -- humans are believed to be inherently prone to evil in Christianity -- because he is considered the Son of God.
Therefore, an expectation for any human to not just live like Christ but to "be Christ," as Wally's mother asked him to be, is an incredibly high expectation. An impossible expectation. It is almost like her daughter's expectation for him not to be Black. Kennedy may have introduced these impossible expectations to express the unforgivingness of society toward people for qualities they cannot control about themselves (ie. racial discrimination).
However, there are a lot of references to the Bible for the character of the father across the script:
Sarah says "But he is dead / And he keeps returning" (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 7)
This is a reference to the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Christians believe that Jesus, after being crucified (executed) on a cross, was buried and rose from the dead three days later. In the case of Jesus, it is believed he defeated death so that other people's sins can be forgiven. In the case of Sarah's father, she believes he is coming back to ask her for forgiveness for his blackness.
Sarah says "I turned from him, nailing him on the cross" (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 16)
Jesus is often referred to as the "sacrificial lamb" because of the the idea that he was innocent and wrongly accused. Sarah saying that she nailed her father on a cross implies that she blamed him for something that he did not deserve the blame for. There is an interesting juxtaposition of her father going to Africa to take the race off of the cross and being nailed on the cross himself. Just as Jesus is said to have taken on the responsibility of all the sins of the world, Sarah's father takes on the blame and shame Sarah has for all the blackness of the world.
He says "I wanted to be a Christian. Now I am Judas. I betrayed my mother. I sent your mother to the asylum. I created a yellow child who hates me. And he tried to hang himself in a Harlem hotel" (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 17)
Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples (followers) of Jesus, is known to have betrayed Jesus by identifying Jesus to the people who were trying to arrest him. For money, Judas betrayed the teacher that he had traveled with and learned from for three years. For those who believe Jesus was the Son of God, Judas betrayed God Himself. Once Judas heard that Jesus had been crucified (executed), he returned the money and hanged himself. Sarah's father's confession and comparison of himself to Judas, therefore, reflects how he sees himself beyond forgiveness for his actions.
When Sarah's father says, "Forgiveness, Sarah. I know you are a nigger of torment," Sarah replies “Why? Christ would not rape anyone” (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 23)
This piece of dialogue, in its extreme juxtaposition of the figure of purity with one of the highest forms of sexual immorality, once again represents how far the father is from the expectations his family has of him. He not only betrayed his mother by not staying in Africa but also betrayed his mother by failing to be like Jesus.
Ambiguity of True Life
In the very end of the play, after Sarah had committed suicide, Raymond states the following:
"Her father never hung himself in a Harlem hotel when Patrice Lumumba was murdered. I know the man. He is a doctor, married to a white whore. He lives in the city in rooms with European antiques, photographs of Roman ruins, walls of books and oriental carpets. Her father is a nigger who eats his meals on a white glass table." (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 24)
This poses the question of whether Sarah's father changed himself completely to conform to the expectations his daughter had for him, or if the entirety of Sarah's story about her father was out of delusion.
Patrice Lumumba
UN Photo/MB
Significance to Plot
The murder of Patrice Lumumba is constantly brought up as the reason for Sarah's father's suicide. Like how the United States lost the willingness to aid Congo, Sarah's father lost the willingness to save Africa. In the play, Jesus is described as being the one to kill Patrice Lumumba in God's name, which may symbolize the punishment of "blackness".
Profile
Name: Patrice Lumumba
Ethnicity: Black
Appearance: "His head appears to be split in two with blood and tissue in [his] eyes. He carries an ebony mask." (Funnyhouse of a Negro, pg. 16)
History of Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Lumumba became a famous political figure nearly overnight after riling up Congolese people against the young King Baudoin of Belgium who praised his own ancestors for the violent and exploitative colonization of Congo. Lumumba's famous words were "We have known ironies, insults and blows, which we had to undergo morning, noon and night because we were blacks."
The United Nations started sending aid to "teach the Congolese how to run their country," but Lumumba took aid from Soviet forces as well, disregarding political diplomacy. His violent tendencies and bursts of rage made him a target for many groups including the CIA, Luba, Belgium forces, and even Congolese politicians like Kasa-Vubu and Mobutu.
Patrice Lumumba started to travel without the protection of the UN and was quickly imprisoned by Mobutu's soldiers. His assassination was organized by Mobutu and the Belgian government who kidnapped him and beat him to a bloody death. His body was "exhumed, cut up and dissolved in sulphuric acid."
"Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the independent state of the Congo, was effectively in power for only ten weeks, but he has become a figure of myth and legend — to some a martyr [to Western capitalism and greed], to others a monster."