ARTICLE
26 October 2021
The Construction and Destruction of Clay’s “Ideal Self” in Dutchman
Wenli Jiang
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1 Tianjin Foreign Studies University, Tianjin 300270, China,
ssr 2021 , 3(4), 70–72; https://doi.org/10.36922/ssr.v3i4.1215
Abstract

Amiri Baraka’s play Dutchman tells the tragic story of Clay, a black man who is seduced, insulted and killed by a white woman Lula on the subway. In order to fit into mainstream American society, Clay always constructs his “ideal self” and plays the role of a fake white man. Lacan’s mirror stage theory can explain the cause of the construction and destruction of Clay’s ideal-self.

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