Critical Essay | Critical Review by John Simon

Critical Review by John Simon

SOURCE: A review of "Dutchman," in The Hudson Review, Vol. XVII, No. 3, Autumn, 1964, p. 424.

In the following unfavorable review, Simon condemns what he considers to be an overtly allegorical plot, simplistic symbols, and pretentious language in "Dutchman."

In LeRoi Jones's "Dutchman" an intellectual, artistic young Negro is picked up on the subway by a weird, taunting white temptress. He is to take her along to a party he is going to, in exchange for which she'll later take him home and to her bed. The girl provokes him with jeers at his attempts to become assimilated into white society and culture; hers in a vicious combination of inviting nympho-mania and castrating rejections. He finally explodes in a philippic hurled as much at some other white passengers as at the girl herself; when she further provokes him into swinging at her, it is she who pulls out a...
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