Flyin' West By Pearl Cleage

In the play, Flyin’ West by Pearl Cleage, the story takes place during the 1890’s where African women born into slavery move from Memphis to settle down in Nicodemus, Kansas in hopes for better life opportunities away from racism. Although the three women, Sophie, Fannie, and Minnie, are not blood related sisters, they consider themselves sisters because of the struggles they go through from white communities and in search of land they can call their own. Their sister, Minnie, arrives back for a visit in Nicodemus from London with her husband, Frank, who both have been living in a more different, wealthy, and privelaged lifestyle compared to Sophie and Miss Leah. Frank is of mixed heritage, being that his father is white, and has very little in common with the morals and values of Minnie’s sisters. Through out the play, Frank is rude towards Sophie and Miss Leah constantly making sarcastic comments. I think his mulatto color plays a part to his character because of the fact that his complexion shows some white in him, so it makes him feel superior to the others and ignores his African heritage.

He is pysically abusive towards Minnie which both Sophie and Miss Leah later discover. Minnie has no say to anything and allows him to step all over her. I think she stays in the relationship because not only is she carrying his child, but also because he is the breadwinner and she enjoys all the fancy things he exposes her to such as life in the city. I think that as much as Minnie loved him, she probably wanted to get out of the relationship before she visited Nicodemus, but didn't know how and didn't have the support of her sisters.
Because Frank’s white brothers stopped sending him money, he was left with nothing to support himself or Minnie and makes a plan to force Minnie to add his name in her deed so he can sell her portion of the land for a great deal of money. He beats her hard for it. There land is the most important thing to them because it’s the only place they can call their own home. Their land is extremely valuable because they were willing to do anything and everything to save their land, even if it meant having to kill Frank which they eventually did.

During my reading I came across two new vocabulary words. The first one is skulking which is found on page 59Act 2 scene 1, “Frank is skulking around in the yard, coatless and cold.” Skulking means keep on hiding as for some evil reason. The second word is gumption found on page 3 Act 1 scene 3, “Because they haven’t got the gumption to try something new.” Gumption means taking the initiative or having the courage.

The characters in the play illustrate the themes of strength, courage, determination, and freedom and I feel that Sophie had those characteristics within her. Throughout the play, she had the strength to speak up for what ever she believed in and never gave up on her plan that their neighborhood would soon be a place with freedom for the colored. I liked this play because it helps us remember the history of African Americans and the struggles they had to go through before they got where they are today. The present is the result of what happened in the past and in order to fully understand why things are they way they are today, its important to have some knowledge of what went on before.