Discontinuity: Absent Ancestors as Negative Role Models

The past passed on in family memory from one generation to the next may indeed constitute a burden for the present and the future, so that the individual may decide to deliberately break with the family past and with his or her ancestors as is shown in Myrtle Smith Livingston’s play For Unborn Children (1926).

In For Unborn Children (1926) it is the protagonist’s attempt to stop history from repeating itself and to act differently from his father, which causes him to discontinue the genealogical chain. The play focuses on the black Carlson family, consisting of Grandma Carlson and her grandchildren Leroy and Marion Carlson. The dialogue between Grandma Carlson and Marion at the beginning of the play reveals that Leroy is in a relationship with Selma, a young white girl, which makes Grandma and Marion worry about his safety. They fear that this mixed relationship will endanger his life, so that they try to convince him to abandon the affair. The discussion between Marion, Leroy, and their grandmother, which arises when he returns home, constitutes the main part of the

172 Angelina Weld Grimké, ""Rachel": The Play of the Month: The Reason and Synopsis by the Author," Selected Works of Angelina Weld Grimké: The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers, ed. Carolivia Herron (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991):

414.

action. The presented time is here almost congruent with the time that is needed to present the action on stage. There are two main arguments that the women put forward against the relationship.

First, both Marion and her grandmother see Leroy’s love for a white woman as a betrayal of his own race. It is especially Marion who emphasizes Leroy’s moral obligation to black women and she asks him: “What is to become of us when our own men throw us down? Even if you do love her can’t you find your backbone to conquer it for the sake of your race?” (FUC 186) She finally threatens him: “Well, if you marry her, may God help me never to breathe your name again! (runs from the room sobbing)” (FUC 186; italics original). Similarly, Grandma Carlson had moaned a few moments before: “I’d almost rather that he should die now than to marry a white woman, […]” (FUC 185). In the conversation with her grandson she points out that his wish to marry a white girl “adds another link to the chain” (FUC 186) that binds black Americans. She explains that “[…]

before we can gain that perfect Freedom [sic] to which we have every right, we’ve got to prove that we’re better than they! And we can’t do it when our men place white women above their own!” (FUC 186) For Leroy’s grandmother and sister, the advancement of African-American people is the main duty of black Americans who have to support their race, even if this forces them to sacrifice their personal happiness. Leroy, however, is not convinced; he is not willing to give up his love for the sake of his race. For him, Selma’s skin color is not important. “[…] I love her so much! Not because she’s white, but just for herself alone; I’d love her just the same if she were black!” (FUC 186), he implores his grandmother and his sister.

It is only the second argument that finally changes his mind when Grandma Carlson begs him to “[t]hink of the unborn children that you sin against by marrying her, baby!”

(FUC 187) She tells her grandson: “Oh, you can’t know the misery that awaits them if you give them a white mother! Every child has a right to a mother who will love it better than life itself; and a white woman cannot mother a Negro baby!” (FUC 187) A few moments before, in the conversation with Marion about how they could stop Leroy from marrying Selma, Grandma Carlson said more to herself than to her granddaughter: “I suppose I’ll have to tell him; well, if it will stop him – “ (FUC 185). It is now in the discussion with Leroy that it becomes obvious what she feels obliged to tell him:

6. Learning from Absent Ancestors and Living Elders:Family Memory on Stage 106

G^RANDMA C^ARLSON (pathetically) […] I’ve never told you this, – I didn’t want you to know, – but your mother was a white woman, and she made your father’s life miserable as long as he lived. She never could stand the sight of you and Marion; she hated you because you weren’t white! I was there to care for you, but I’m getting old, Honey, and I couldn’t go through it again!

(FUC 187; italics original)

The story about Leroy’s parents explains the absence of Leroy’s mother on stage and proves Grandma Carlson’s argument about a white mother being unable to love her biracial children. She insistently begs her grandson not to “make the same mistake [his]

father did!” (FUC 187) Grandma Carlson decides to reveal this family memory to her grandchildren when she realizes that the present is caught up with the past, and it is the revelation of this long-kept family secret which finally changes Leroy’s decision. In an antagonistic tone he asks her: “Oh, Granny, why didn’t you tell me before? My mother, white! I’ve wondered why you never spoke of her! And she hated us! My God! That makes it different!” (FUC 187) In order to give Leroy time and space to think about what he has just learned, Grandma Carlson leaves the stage, telling him: “I’ll leave you alone with God and your conscience, and whatever you decide, I’ll be satisfied” (FUC 187). In the end Leroy does not repeat his father’s “mistake.” Leroy’s decision to abandon the relationship coincides with the appearance of a white mob that approaches the Carlson home in order to lynch “the dirty nigger” who “fool[s] around a white woman” (FUC 187). Like a martyr, Leroy faces his death “victorious and unafraid” (FUC 187).

According to the stage directions “a light breaks over his face and he is transfigured; a gleam of holiness comes into his eyes; […]” (FUC 187) when he explains to Selma:

It has to be, sweetheart, and it is the better way; even though we love each other we couldn’t have found happiness together. Forget me, and marry a man of your own race; you’ll be happier, and I will too, up there. Goodbye.

(FUC 187)

The appearance of the crowd supports his decision to terminate his relationship with Selma. He tells his sister Marion: “I want you to know that even if this hadn’t happened, I was going to give her up” (FUC 187). He repeatedly explains to Selma, his sister, and to his grandmother that “it has to be” and “this is the better way” (FUC 187). He accepts his death as a punishment and, “looking heavenward,” he says: “Thy will be done, O Lord!”

(FUC 187) While he does not mention his concern for future generations of children in his parting words to Selma, he advises his grandmother and his sister to “just think of [his death] as a sacrifice for UNBORN CHILDREN!” (FUC 187; emphasis original) It is finally the memory of his parents that triggers Leroy’s decision to change the present situation in order to guarantee an alternative future for the next generation of the Leroy family. Leroy wishes to dissociate himself from the past and from his parents whose mixed relationship is seen as a negative role model. The absence of Leroy’s parents on stage carries a strong symbolic meaning in that it signifies the discontinuity in family history. The ancestors’ absence foreshadows Leroy’s attempt to stop history from repeating itself and to compensate for the “mistake” his parents had made in the past. In the end he has to suffer the same fate his parents did in that his love for a white woman results in his death, creating another space of absence in the genealogical tree.

In general, for the younger characters in all of the plays analyzed above, family history serves as a model from which they are supposed to learn for the present and for the future. By learning about the past they learn about the present and take responsibility for the future. For a contemporary audience, however, the conversational remembering of the fictional family past on stage also conveys additional information about history in general.