Black Oedipus
The United States, at its birth, was constructed to mimic the classic values of Greece and Rome, as understood by the founding fathers. As the years continued to march on towards the Civil War, this focus on borrowing classic roots continued to hold strong: the capitol building was built in a Roman style, a statue of the first president, George Washington, was cast to look like Zeus, and cities and streets were named after Athens, Rome, and Troy. This desire to be seen as a classical Republic held through the Civil War, during which the battlefield of Gettysburg was dedicated with a two hour rhetorical speech that likened the event to Athenian funerals. It was worried that, should these classical values be forgotten, the United States would reach an eventual collapse, just like the societies of Greece and Rome, on which the US was built.
This belief in the importance of a Greco-Roman foundation was so tightly held that a common way to mock the black population was by pointing out their lack of connection to this history. This criticism wasn't just about where you were from, or what you knew, it was about knowing how to participate in politics. In other words, it was believed that no individual could participate in American democracy, without understanding the foundational classic philosophies on which it was built. Because of this belief, African-Americans, who had largely not received classical education, were unable to be seen as true citizens of the United States, even after they were emancipated. It was for this reason that black scholars, liberators, and educators chose classical education as their weapon.
Classical education was seen as the key to true liberty, and it was the classical part that was important. For white children across the United States, a basic education was seen as reading, writing, and arithmetic. Secondary education included cartography, physiology, algebra, and geometry. It was only the truly elite in education who went on to learn higher mathematics, science, philosophy, Latin and Greek, and it was this elite education which was being aimed for among the black community. Formal education had been denied to them for too long. Under the new laws and freedoms, education was a primary goal, with a classical education being seen as the mark of a truly learned person. It was not just a matter of pride, but opportunity, as many professions required some basic form of understanding of the classics, including medicine, science, law, art, architecture, and dramatic theatre.
Though there had been plenty of forms of drama and entertainment that included narratives about black characters, these characters were played primarily by white actors in blackface until after emancipation. In fact, one of the most famous plays about the black experience, Uncle Tom’s Cabin did not have a single black actor until 1876. It was remarked upon by black tragic actor, Charles Winter Wood, that there was not yet space for black tragic actors, but that he believed that he would live to see the day in which there would be. This lack of space in theatre caused many black actors to make their way to Europe, where there was more opportunity, Ira Aldridge being a well known example. While this is the history that is known by many, actors such as Wood stayed in the United States and strategically made the classics their theatrical battle cry.
As Wood faced the problems of racism in theatre, he used classics to help his cause. He did this with company, as white Americans were clinging to the classics to help rebuild after the Civil War. Classical concepts such as the demagogue were used to explain the misdeeds of the South, the ideology of classics was being used to prop up a concept of citizen that did not rely on being part of the capitalist system that was beginning to struggle with the loss of slaves, and the concept of tragedy and the overcoming of it was used to raise morale and create hope for the future. It was within this framework and the decades following the Civil War that Charles Winter Wood turned to Greek theatre to establish his place in the theatrical, academic, and political community.
Charles Winter Wood was the second black student to graduate from Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, which was a religious school at that time. He graduated in 1895 with honors in Greek and was regionally famous by the time of his graduation as an orator and actor in Greek tragedies. He would go on to be a leading figure in black academia, which relied on Greek and Latin as a means of establishing legitimacy. This was an important step for the black community as it moved forward.
Having reached freedom and having made the argument for citizenship, the black community now faced the prejudice of those who mocked the idea that they could ever be truly educated members of society. Their only place as citizens was in menial labor, where a classical education could never serve them. In the terms of Charles Winter Wood, who started his theatrical career not on stage, but on the streets of Chicago as a bootblack who performed Shakespeare for his customers, to learn the classics merely made him, in the minds of many, a Latin speaking bootblack. This, of course, was no new concern but was addressed in the play that made Wood famous, Oedipus Rex. In Oedipus Rex, the prophet states, “How dreadful it can be to have wisdom when it brings no benefit to the man possessing it.” Many in the new United States agreed with this sentiment. What would the actual benefit of this classical education for Wood and other African-Americans be?
As Wood pursued a classical education in oration and translation, the role that brought Wood to fame was that of the title role in Oedipus Rex. However, as Oedipus himself points out, words are often not enough for “when a man has no fear of doing the act, he’s not afraid of the words.” America, for a long time, had been unafraid of the act of slavery, and the classics, the very words being used by Wood to make a name for himself, were used by white America to defend slavery. For this reason, from the very beginning of black education, it was questioned whether classical tradition should be included. It was wondered if relying on the classics actually harmed the black community, much like Teiresias warns Oedipus that through his actions he had “become the enemy of your own kindred.” It was questioned if black classical scholars were betraying their people.
From the beginning it was wondered if, by learning Greek and Latin, the black community was simply trying to be white. But, beyond that, there was the issue that, in the first place, the classical basis of the US had allowed slavery in the first place. And, if that were true, what was the point of attempting to use this classical basis now? Not only was the classical founding of the United States incapable of solving the issue, but there was the problem of Greeks and Romans having practiced slavery themselves, a fact used by the South to defend their actions. While it has been argued that Aristotle’s writings about "natural slavery” were not directed at Africans, it cannot be argued this his writings were not used by the South. However, it was not just the South to blame for this particular use of the classics, for at the very beginning of the country, the classical concept of virtue was used to defend the idea of voters being only land-owning men. Even Oedipus Rex itself has problematic statements about slaves. So why would Charles Winter Wood use classical theatre and, in particular, Oedipus Rex to stake his place in the theatre world?
It must be remembered that the performance of old plays, historical plays, are not for the benefit of the past, but the present. Charles Winter Wood was one of the many people who saw it as his duty to prove the use of a classical education in the United States. Perhaps his reason for staying can be found in the words of the very character that made him famous when Oedipus says, “The grief I feel for these citizens is even greater than any pain I feel for my own life.” While the road for Wood may have been harder in the United States and harder in the pursuit of classics, remaining in the United States and using Greek theatre as his artform gave Wood the chance to succeed as a true American citizen for his fellow black American citizens.
As he made his way in theatre, he was reminded by leaders in the black community that he was being watched and that the entire community would be judged by his successes and failures. This was matter of proving his humanity and the humanity of his people. This is not an exaggeration, as an article in Beloit College’s school newspaper, The Round Table, argues for the “capabilities of the Negro race” based on how many recognized leading orators at universities were black. Our very acceptance of black tragic actors today is because of the battles fought in the US, by people like Charles Winter Wood, through the the use of classics.
A large part of the importance of classics was because a classical education was believed to be necessary for creating leaders, a desperate need of the black community as it tried to get a foothold in American society. Having classically educated members of the community meant having viable leaders. As long as the African-American community was connected to the classics, they and their leaders could not be seen as inferior.
Learning the classics, however, was not enough for the true, citizen worthy connection that was being sought. African-Americans linked themselves to classical civilizations through northern Africa, thereby claiming the classical civilization as their domain. Black academics argued that, as soon as their community received the classic education that had been denied to them, America would recognize them as the rightful heirs of Greece and Rome. It was about more than knowing the same things as the white community, it was about having the same usable history as those who established the United States and enslaved the black community for so many generations. It was about establishing their right for freedom, equality, and citizenship in a classical culture.
Beyond establishing a historical and geographic claim to the classics, the black community also argued that it was them, and not white Americans who were living in the spirit of the ancient civilizations. In the fight for freedom, it was they who were exhibiting the spirit of the Spartans,who upheld the classic love of justice and redemption. The true heroic figures of Greek and Roman myths and history, they argued, were the emancipators. This made the black community the true citizens of Greece based America.
It had been argued for centuries that Europe was made human through classical civilization, and the black community planned to be seen as human through the same means. By adopting the classics, they were offering a new way to be seen and understood. They were making an ideological appeal, claiming that they had a natural connection to the very societies on which America was built, and that the name of that connection was liberty. They were the citizens truly pursuing freedom.
Classical education was known by another name, liberal education. Connected to the concept of liberation, it was the education of a free man. Post-Civil War African-Americans wanted education and a place in the American society, they wanted to be seen as part of the liberal system. It was for this reason that Charles Winter Wood pursued his education at a liberal arts college. He, like other black classical scholars of the day, was claiming his rightful place in a government built for emancipators.
This concept of emancipator as hero can be seen in Oedipus Rex. Having freed Thebes from the Sphinx by solving her riddle, Oedipus is named the King of the Thebes. The Priest tells him, “with gods’ help, you gave us back our lives.” However, now the city has been overcome by plague. Once again, they turn to their emancipator, asking Oedipus to save them yet again. The Priest tells Oedipus, “the city celebrates you as its saviour. Don’t let our memory of your ruling here declare that we were first set right again and later fell. Restore our city so that it stands secure.” For the people of Thebes, and the African-American community, having been freed from slavery they now found themselves in the place of worrying about their lives and livelihood. Though it was what was originally desired, to be freed from the Sphinx, or the American slavery system, was not enough. The people now faced an attack on their very being.
This attack on their being was even done through the classics for the African-American community, as some claimed that a classical education was exactly what was needed to prove the humanity and equality of the African-Americans. John C Calhoun was known for commenting that he would only believe that Negroes were human if they could be taught Greek. Because of challenges and statements such as these, many African-Americans felt that there was no space for failure in a classical education. The emancipation had happened, but now it was through people like Charles Winter Wood that their very being must be defended.
While people challenged the black community to simply be able to understand classics based academics, what may not have been anticipated is the ways that understanding of these classical artifacts change in the hands of people with different backgrounds. What did it mean for a black man, only a couple of generations removed from slavery, to translate the line, “Yes, as a slave. But I was not bought, I grew up in this house”? As Rankin notes, not only were black scholars interested in the classics, but they were using them to understand their own American heritage. This brought a new lens to the texts.
It is not surprising that Charles Winter Wood received his first big recognition in the role of Oedipus. Like Wood, Oedipus is a character with something he is trying to prove, and a fate he is trying to avoid. Like Wood, Oedipus is a self-taught man, with the priest remarking “you knew no more than we did and had not been taught.” Oedipus is therefore not just an emancipator, but an uneducated emancipator, whose ability to free and lead comes from his own person, his own being. As he says about the Sphinx, “I came, Oedipus, who knew nothing. Yet I finished her off, using my wits.” This sounds similar to Wood’s on story, who, when asked about his abilities as a tragic actor replied, “whatever I know I have taught myself.” Of course, the simple lack of an expected education is not the only similarity a lens Wood could have brought to the role of Oedipus.
The tragedy of Oedipus lies in an unfaced past, both in the murder of the king and in the disposal of Oedipus as a baby. Because of this history, Oedipus is not capable of keeping the freedom he gained for his people, begging Teiresias, “save this city and yourself. Rescue me. Deliver us.” He worries that the unfaced history will “prove our common ruin.” As a man with the generational history of slavery, Charles Winter Wood must have been aware of the ways that the past defines the present and how it can come back to haunt you.
Another way that Oedipus proves to be the perfect role for a black tragic actor, is that he is a character who is well aware of pain. When his people cry out to him to notice the pain of the city, he replies, “You are not rousing me from a deep sleep. You must know I’ve been shedding many tears and, in my wandering thoughts, exploring many pathways.” He later remarks that the pains he bears “are numberless.” In America in the late nineteenth century, it is no surprise that a black man would be noted for his portrayal of Oedipus, for who would better play the role of a tragic king, than someone experiencing first hand the great tragedy of the United States: the history and experience of black Americans.
What adds an interesting layer to Wood’s famous portrayal of Oedipus, is the discussion of slavery within the play, and particularly the role of it in Oedipus’s own history. While characters are marked as slave or free men throughout the play, with the emphasis of pride being obviously placed on being free, Oedipus seems unafraid of having a past marked by slavery. He brings up the topic of potentially being a descendant of a slave to Jocasta and confidently states, “no matter how base born my family, I wish to know the seed from where I came.” For Oedipus, this is not just a matter of knowing for the sake of proving himself not a slave, for he remarks, “I will never feel myself dishonoured. I see myself as a child of fortune.” And even when it first comes out that he was born in the very palace of which he is now the head, he first assumes that he must be the child of one of the palace slaves. For Oedipus, it’s about knowing his own history and the importance of that. What did it mean to a recently post-slavery society to see a black man as king, but to hear him declare himself proud of his history, even if it is one of slavery?
It cannot be argued that Wood was unaware of the power of words and stories. He was, after all, an award winning orator in a time in which oration was considered a high art form. Not only that, but he was a black award winning orator in a time in which black students were being taught rhetoric and oration for the sake of arguing their equality, citizenship, and rights.
Oedipus is a ruler more concerned for his people than himself, a trait of which Wood seemed well aware with the pressure to perform for his people. However, as Oedipus attempts to provide for his people, like any tragic king he, by nature of his person and history, ends up bringing shame. This is a fate that Wood must have feared, as the need to prove his people capable meant that the weight of his person and history rested constantly on his shoulders and was working against him. All Greek tragedy is the story of fate or the gods against man. Charles Winter Wood, by merely trying to be something that the American system had declared impossible due to his skin color, was tempting fate.
That question of slavery and the Civil War was so closely tied to the classics, it could not have been far from mind. The Civil War was seen by the North as a sort of continuation of the noble wars of the classical age which fought for emancipation. After all, it was the great classical art of rhetoric which was seen as the successful tool against tyranny and injustice. By performing Oedipus, a story of a king with a questionable history, who emancipated his people, but now seeks help in keeping them alive and well, Wood was arguably performing a rhetorical plea for the same pity and justice which is being asked for by the people of Thebes.
Wood was truly among the best of the orators, with descriptions of his speaking saying that his “opening sentences cut the silence with almost magic power. He was in splendid form and his voice was under perfect control.” However, it was not just his voice, it was the fact that Wood had found meaning cultural touchstones in the classics. By performing Oedipus, Wood’s words were able to connect with an audience who knew their classics.
Wood accomplished his goal of resonating with his audience. Reviews announced that “sympathetic tears dimmed every eye that gazed upon him.” In Oedipus, Wood found exactly the right words to explain his struggles and fears to a white audience.
Oedipus Rex is ultimately a story of a people trying to find a reason to cling to hope. For Oedipus, this hope never comes, with him declaring it would have been better for him to have remained in shackles and died than have brought the destruction that he did. It may seem foolish to the audience who knows the story when Oedipus declares at the beginning that “even troubles difficult to bear will all end happily.” The audience knows that nothing will end happily for Oedipus. That is, in fact, what makes it a tragedy. However, what also makes it a tragedy is that, through the despair of the tragic figure, there is hope for everyone else. In the end, the promise for a happy ending is one for the people, and not for their leaders. Perhaps this is the reason Wood risked his career in the United States. Perhaps this is the reason Wood found success in Oedipus Rex.
Wood’s story continues in a much happier fashion than that of the king who made him famous. Wood continued on, not only to act professionally in tragedy, but also to head the departments of English and Drama, as well as coach football, at the Tuskegee Institute. How classically trained orator and actor Charles Winter Wood’s educational philosophy worked at the college started by a very anti-classics Booker T. Washington is unknown. What is known is that he went on to have a successful career in both theatre and academia, both of which were fueled through his use of the classics and Oedipus Rex.
Though the hold of classics would eventually be reduced in the United States educational system, in the decades following the Civil War, they were a crucial part in understanding American citizenship, history, race relations, and emancipation. It was on this ground that actors like Charles Winter Wood built their careers in the United States on the classics, with the goal of creating a better tomorrow for their people.
This belief in the importance of a Greco-Roman foundation was so tightly held that a common way to mock the black population was by pointing out their lack of connection to this history. This criticism wasn't just about where you were from, or what you knew, it was about knowing how to participate in politics. In other words, it was believed that no individual could participate in American democracy, without understanding the foundational classic philosophies on which it was built. Because of this belief, African-Americans, who had largely not received classical education, were unable to be seen as true citizens of the United States, even after they were emancipated. It was for this reason that black scholars, liberators, and educators chose classical education as their weapon.
Classical education was seen as the key to true liberty, and it was the classical part that was important. For white children across the United States, a basic education was seen as reading, writing, and arithmetic. Secondary education included cartography, physiology, algebra, and geometry. It was only the truly elite in education who went on to learn higher mathematics, science, philosophy, Latin and Greek, and it was this elite education which was being aimed for among the black community. Formal education had been denied to them for too long. Under the new laws and freedoms, education was a primary goal, with a classical education being seen as the mark of a truly learned person. It was not just a matter of pride, but opportunity, as many professions required some basic form of understanding of the classics, including medicine, science, law, art, architecture, and dramatic theatre.
Though there had been plenty of forms of drama and entertainment that included narratives about black characters, these characters were played primarily by white actors in blackface until after emancipation. In fact, one of the most famous plays about the black experience, Uncle Tom’s Cabin did not have a single black actor until 1876. It was remarked upon by black tragic actor, Charles Winter Wood, that there was not yet space for black tragic actors, but that he believed that he would live to see the day in which there would be. This lack of space in theatre caused many black actors to make their way to Europe, where there was more opportunity, Ira Aldridge being a well known example. While this is the history that is known by many, actors such as Wood stayed in the United States and strategically made the classics their theatrical battle cry.
As Wood faced the problems of racism in theatre, he used classics to help his cause. He did this with company, as white Americans were clinging to the classics to help rebuild after the Civil War. Classical concepts such as the demagogue were used to explain the misdeeds of the South, the ideology of classics was being used to prop up a concept of citizen that did not rely on being part of the capitalist system that was beginning to struggle with the loss of slaves, and the concept of tragedy and the overcoming of it was used to raise morale and create hope for the future. It was within this framework and the decades following the Civil War that Charles Winter Wood turned to Greek theatre to establish his place in the theatrical, academic, and political community.
Charles Winter Wood was the second black student to graduate from Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, which was a religious school at that time. He graduated in 1895 with honors in Greek and was regionally famous by the time of his graduation as an orator and actor in Greek tragedies. He would go on to be a leading figure in black academia, which relied on Greek and Latin as a means of establishing legitimacy. This was an important step for the black community as it moved forward.
Having reached freedom and having made the argument for citizenship, the black community now faced the prejudice of those who mocked the idea that they could ever be truly educated members of society. Their only place as citizens was in menial labor, where a classical education could never serve them. In the terms of Charles Winter Wood, who started his theatrical career not on stage, but on the streets of Chicago as a bootblack who performed Shakespeare for his customers, to learn the classics merely made him, in the minds of many, a Latin speaking bootblack. This, of course, was no new concern but was addressed in the play that made Wood famous, Oedipus Rex. In Oedipus Rex, the prophet states, “How dreadful it can be to have wisdom when it brings no benefit to the man possessing it.” Many in the new United States agreed with this sentiment. What would the actual benefit of this classical education for Wood and other African-Americans be?
As Wood pursued a classical education in oration and translation, the role that brought Wood to fame was that of the title role in Oedipus Rex. However, as Oedipus himself points out, words are often not enough for “when a man has no fear of doing the act, he’s not afraid of the words.” America, for a long time, had been unafraid of the act of slavery, and the classics, the very words being used by Wood to make a name for himself, were used by white America to defend slavery. For this reason, from the very beginning of black education, it was questioned whether classical tradition should be included. It was wondered if relying on the classics actually harmed the black community, much like Teiresias warns Oedipus that through his actions he had “become the enemy of your own kindred.” It was questioned if black classical scholars were betraying their people.
From the beginning it was wondered if, by learning Greek and Latin, the black community was simply trying to be white. But, beyond that, there was the issue that, in the first place, the classical basis of the US had allowed slavery in the first place. And, if that were true, what was the point of attempting to use this classical basis now? Not only was the classical founding of the United States incapable of solving the issue, but there was the problem of Greeks and Romans having practiced slavery themselves, a fact used by the South to defend their actions. While it has been argued that Aristotle’s writings about "natural slavery” were not directed at Africans, it cannot be argued this his writings were not used by the South. However, it was not just the South to blame for this particular use of the classics, for at the very beginning of the country, the classical concept of virtue was used to defend the idea of voters being only land-owning men. Even Oedipus Rex itself has problematic statements about slaves. So why would Charles Winter Wood use classical theatre and, in particular, Oedipus Rex to stake his place in the theatre world?
It must be remembered that the performance of old plays, historical plays, are not for the benefit of the past, but the present. Charles Winter Wood was one of the many people who saw it as his duty to prove the use of a classical education in the United States. Perhaps his reason for staying can be found in the words of the very character that made him famous when Oedipus says, “The grief I feel for these citizens is even greater than any pain I feel for my own life.” While the road for Wood may have been harder in the United States and harder in the pursuit of classics, remaining in the United States and using Greek theatre as his artform gave Wood the chance to succeed as a true American citizen for his fellow black American citizens.
As he made his way in theatre, he was reminded by leaders in the black community that he was being watched and that the entire community would be judged by his successes and failures. This was matter of proving his humanity and the humanity of his people. This is not an exaggeration, as an article in Beloit College’s school newspaper, The Round Table, argues for the “capabilities of the Negro race” based on how many recognized leading orators at universities were black. Our very acceptance of black tragic actors today is because of the battles fought in the US, by people like Charles Winter Wood, through the the use of classics.
A large part of the importance of classics was because a classical education was believed to be necessary for creating leaders, a desperate need of the black community as it tried to get a foothold in American society. Having classically educated members of the community meant having viable leaders. As long as the African-American community was connected to the classics, they and their leaders could not be seen as inferior.
Learning the classics, however, was not enough for the true, citizen worthy connection that was being sought. African-Americans linked themselves to classical civilizations through northern Africa, thereby claiming the classical civilization as their domain. Black academics argued that, as soon as their community received the classic education that had been denied to them, America would recognize them as the rightful heirs of Greece and Rome. It was about more than knowing the same things as the white community, it was about having the same usable history as those who established the United States and enslaved the black community for so many generations. It was about establishing their right for freedom, equality, and citizenship in a classical culture.
Beyond establishing a historical and geographic claim to the classics, the black community also argued that it was them, and not white Americans who were living in the spirit of the ancient civilizations. In the fight for freedom, it was they who were exhibiting the spirit of the Spartans,who upheld the classic love of justice and redemption. The true heroic figures of Greek and Roman myths and history, they argued, were the emancipators. This made the black community the true citizens of Greece based America.
It had been argued for centuries that Europe was made human through classical civilization, and the black community planned to be seen as human through the same means. By adopting the classics, they were offering a new way to be seen and understood. They were making an ideological appeal, claiming that they had a natural connection to the very societies on which America was built, and that the name of that connection was liberty. They were the citizens truly pursuing freedom.
Classical education was known by another name, liberal education. Connected to the concept of liberation, it was the education of a free man. Post-Civil War African-Americans wanted education and a place in the American society, they wanted to be seen as part of the liberal system. It was for this reason that Charles Winter Wood pursued his education at a liberal arts college. He, like other black classical scholars of the day, was claiming his rightful place in a government built for emancipators.
This concept of emancipator as hero can be seen in Oedipus Rex. Having freed Thebes from the Sphinx by solving her riddle, Oedipus is named the King of the Thebes. The Priest tells him, “with gods’ help, you gave us back our lives.” However, now the city has been overcome by plague. Once again, they turn to their emancipator, asking Oedipus to save them yet again. The Priest tells Oedipus, “the city celebrates you as its saviour. Don’t let our memory of your ruling here declare that we were first set right again and later fell. Restore our city so that it stands secure.” For the people of Thebes, and the African-American community, having been freed from slavery they now found themselves in the place of worrying about their lives and livelihood. Though it was what was originally desired, to be freed from the Sphinx, or the American slavery system, was not enough. The people now faced an attack on their very being.
This attack on their being was even done through the classics for the African-American community, as some claimed that a classical education was exactly what was needed to prove the humanity and equality of the African-Americans. John C Calhoun was known for commenting that he would only believe that Negroes were human if they could be taught Greek. Because of challenges and statements such as these, many African-Americans felt that there was no space for failure in a classical education. The emancipation had happened, but now it was through people like Charles Winter Wood that their very being must be defended.
While people challenged the black community to simply be able to understand classics based academics, what may not have been anticipated is the ways that understanding of these classical artifacts change in the hands of people with different backgrounds. What did it mean for a black man, only a couple of generations removed from slavery, to translate the line, “Yes, as a slave. But I was not bought, I grew up in this house”? As Rankin notes, not only were black scholars interested in the classics, but they were using them to understand their own American heritage. This brought a new lens to the texts.
It is not surprising that Charles Winter Wood received his first big recognition in the role of Oedipus. Like Wood, Oedipus is a character with something he is trying to prove, and a fate he is trying to avoid. Like Wood, Oedipus is a self-taught man, with the priest remarking “you knew no more than we did and had not been taught.” Oedipus is therefore not just an emancipator, but an uneducated emancipator, whose ability to free and lead comes from his own person, his own being. As he says about the Sphinx, “I came, Oedipus, who knew nothing. Yet I finished her off, using my wits.” This sounds similar to Wood’s on story, who, when asked about his abilities as a tragic actor replied, “whatever I know I have taught myself.” Of course, the simple lack of an expected education is not the only similarity a lens Wood could have brought to the role of Oedipus.
The tragedy of Oedipus lies in an unfaced past, both in the murder of the king and in the disposal of Oedipus as a baby. Because of this history, Oedipus is not capable of keeping the freedom he gained for his people, begging Teiresias, “save this city and yourself. Rescue me. Deliver us.” He worries that the unfaced history will “prove our common ruin.” As a man with the generational history of slavery, Charles Winter Wood must have been aware of the ways that the past defines the present and how it can come back to haunt you.
Another way that Oedipus proves to be the perfect role for a black tragic actor, is that he is a character who is well aware of pain. When his people cry out to him to notice the pain of the city, he replies, “You are not rousing me from a deep sleep. You must know I’ve been shedding many tears and, in my wandering thoughts, exploring many pathways.” He later remarks that the pains he bears “are numberless.” In America in the late nineteenth century, it is no surprise that a black man would be noted for his portrayal of Oedipus, for who would better play the role of a tragic king, than someone experiencing first hand the great tragedy of the United States: the history and experience of black Americans.
What adds an interesting layer to Wood’s famous portrayal of Oedipus, is the discussion of slavery within the play, and particularly the role of it in Oedipus’s own history. While characters are marked as slave or free men throughout the play, with the emphasis of pride being obviously placed on being free, Oedipus seems unafraid of having a past marked by slavery. He brings up the topic of potentially being a descendant of a slave to Jocasta and confidently states, “no matter how base born my family, I wish to know the seed from where I came.” For Oedipus, this is not just a matter of knowing for the sake of proving himself not a slave, for he remarks, “I will never feel myself dishonoured. I see myself as a child of fortune.” And even when it first comes out that he was born in the very palace of which he is now the head, he first assumes that he must be the child of one of the palace slaves. For Oedipus, it’s about knowing his own history and the importance of that. What did it mean to a recently post-slavery society to see a black man as king, but to hear him declare himself proud of his history, even if it is one of slavery?
It cannot be argued that Wood was unaware of the power of words and stories. He was, after all, an award winning orator in a time in which oration was considered a high art form. Not only that, but he was a black award winning orator in a time in which black students were being taught rhetoric and oration for the sake of arguing their equality, citizenship, and rights.
Oedipus is a ruler more concerned for his people than himself, a trait of which Wood seemed well aware with the pressure to perform for his people. However, as Oedipus attempts to provide for his people, like any tragic king he, by nature of his person and history, ends up bringing shame. This is a fate that Wood must have feared, as the need to prove his people capable meant that the weight of his person and history rested constantly on his shoulders and was working against him. All Greek tragedy is the story of fate or the gods against man. Charles Winter Wood, by merely trying to be something that the American system had declared impossible due to his skin color, was tempting fate.
That question of slavery and the Civil War was so closely tied to the classics, it could not have been far from mind. The Civil War was seen by the North as a sort of continuation of the noble wars of the classical age which fought for emancipation. After all, it was the great classical art of rhetoric which was seen as the successful tool against tyranny and injustice. By performing Oedipus, a story of a king with a questionable history, who emancipated his people, but now seeks help in keeping them alive and well, Wood was arguably performing a rhetorical plea for the same pity and justice which is being asked for by the people of Thebes.
Wood was truly among the best of the orators, with descriptions of his speaking saying that his “opening sentences cut the silence with almost magic power. He was in splendid form and his voice was under perfect control.” However, it was not just his voice, it was the fact that Wood had found meaning cultural touchstones in the classics. By performing Oedipus, Wood’s words were able to connect with an audience who knew their classics.
Wood accomplished his goal of resonating with his audience. Reviews announced that “sympathetic tears dimmed every eye that gazed upon him.” In Oedipus, Wood found exactly the right words to explain his struggles and fears to a white audience.
Oedipus Rex is ultimately a story of a people trying to find a reason to cling to hope. For Oedipus, this hope never comes, with him declaring it would have been better for him to have remained in shackles and died than have brought the destruction that he did. It may seem foolish to the audience who knows the story when Oedipus declares at the beginning that “even troubles difficult to bear will all end happily.” The audience knows that nothing will end happily for Oedipus. That is, in fact, what makes it a tragedy. However, what also makes it a tragedy is that, through the despair of the tragic figure, there is hope for everyone else. In the end, the promise for a happy ending is one for the people, and not for their leaders. Perhaps this is the reason Wood risked his career in the United States. Perhaps this is the reason Wood found success in Oedipus Rex.
Wood’s story continues in a much happier fashion than that of the king who made him famous. Wood continued on, not only to act professionally in tragedy, but also to head the departments of English and Drama, as well as coach football, at the Tuskegee Institute. How classically trained orator and actor Charles Winter Wood’s educational philosophy worked at the college started by a very anti-classics Booker T. Washington is unknown. What is known is that he went on to have a successful career in both theatre and academia, both of which were fueled through his use of the classics and Oedipus Rex.
Though the hold of classics would eventually be reduced in the United States educational system, in the decades following the Civil War, they were a crucial part in understanding American citizenship, history, race relations, and emancipation. It was on this ground that actors like Charles Winter Wood built their careers in the United States on the classics, with the goal of creating a better tomorrow for their people.
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| Charles Winter Wood in Alcestis (Beloit College Archive) |
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