Seth Holly, as the owner of the boarding house, he manages the financial part for

his business. He also does not believe in African mythical stuff. On the other hand,

Bertha is a woman who controls the kitchen of the boarding house, and she is warm

and patient to the people who live there. She understands those boarders’ difficulty

and struggles. She often help them, such as help Loomis to get out from the trauma

of Joe Turner. In the play, Bertha creates a feeling of home to the boarder there and

provide them spiritual and mental help to them. She balances the seriousness and

strict rules from Seth. In order to provide warmness and kindness to boarder, she

cooks food for them and provide kind guidance to them. Food often provides

comfort and sustenance to people to feel warm. Also she provides advice to Mattie

and Loomis, letting Mattie work for her in order to help their family to save money

and provide support to Loomis. Furthermore, she establishes the activity on Sunday

to help Black people living there to find a sense of home and everyone attend it.

Together, Seth and Bertha embody the balance of practicality and emotional care

that grounds the other characters as they navigate their personal journeys.

During the end of act 1 and act 2, Loomis cannot stand up. At the end of act one,

he was frightened by the dead body floating on the water and they are all black

when he’s describing it. At here, the reason why Loomis cannot stand is because he

was shocked by the trauma, and he is still in this trauma, as Loomis said in the play,

quoted, “All the breath coming to my body and I got to stand up”. Here, Loomis

became one of the dead body of black people in the water, lying there and not

moving. He was summoned into that past memory. At the end of act two, Loomis

also cannot stand up due to the past trauma from Joe Turner, and he sent his

daughter to leave with Zonia, so he will be at ease to go to other city. Until now, he
was still trapped by the evil, death and fear from his past memory. However, he

went back standing at the end of the play by cutting his chest and put the blood on

his face, he stand eventually. Here symbols he eventually overcome his fear and he

can stand on his own feet. Loomis’s resolution here is that he was connected to his

own and his spiritual self. He found who he was eventually by bleeding, which is a

symbol of releasing all those past trauma. The metaphor August Wilson here trying

to convey is that Joe Turner is the past trauma and the horrible memory. When one

can stand on their feet, it means they overcome those fear and find themselves,

which means they find their identity and were not enslaved anymore, they are free.

Ruthford Selig, one of the characters in the play that is quite controversial. He is a

white man who’s family was doing slavery business, which made black people lost

their freedom. However, Selig plays a role of providing help to the black people by

searching people for them and charge them money. This connection made Selig’s

identity become controversial by the relationship of what his ancestors while he’s

saving and helping black people because of he knows African Americans very well

due to his ancestors. He is helping them but he’s also using black people as a way for

him to make money, which is similar to his ancestors. One assumption of why he

starts to do searching for black people is because that slavery was no longer legal at

that time of the United States, so he has to abandon that business. He knew black

people well, so he starts to search black people instead. Also, while communicating

with black people, he does not have any emotions on that. In this case, it is obvious

that he still does not like black people, he just treated them as his business, and he

just do what he’s paid for. He just want money from them and that’s it. At 2024,

Rutherford Selig would be a tech company’s worker who sell people’s data. This
matches his identity of a people’s finder and he only care about earning money from

others.

The two themes I choose in the book are self identity & discovery, and migration

& freedom. The significance of self identity & discovery in the play is throughout the

whole play on everyone, especially on Loomis. Everyone in the play has a role and

they know who they are and what they want to do, except Loomis. He was

frightened by the capture of Joe Turner and he is now poor. He was looking for his

daughter and his wife when he arrives at the boarding house. He lost his identity by

years of enslavement and trauma by not standing on his foot and always afraid of

Joe Turner. Loomis starts to discover his identity by singing those songs from Bynum

and cutting his chest and put blood on his face in order to make sacrifice to the god.

When he stands up, it is a symbol of him successfully find his identity. This theme’s

significance in the play is to show the way of people to find their identity. The reason

why August Wilson highlight this theme in this play is to emphasize the theme of

African Americans’ tragic experience after the slavery and racism after slavery was

abolished. They were oppressed at that time and cannot enjoy the same privilege

white people has. Loomis, one who cannot find his identity, represents the African

American who were freed from slavery who does not what to do next. The search for

self identity is on individuals and also on a group, pointing to the cultural and

spiritual connection with their ancestor and themselves. This self identity theme has

a high relevance with today’s African Americans. In these years, many discrimination

to black people appears in many states around the country, such as being treated

unequally by some police, for example Floyd at 2020. The movement of fighting back

those discrimination, such as Black Lives Matter, shows black people are trying to
find and prove their identity. The second theme, migration & freedom, is also quite

significant in the play. The play’s setting is at 1911, where the Great Migration occurs

in United States. It reflects the desperation of African American’s desire of freedom,

and they hope to find respect and jobs at North. Herald and Martha Loomis are the

example of those migrated people. Herald lost his freedom and family while

migration, and hard to settle down at North because he has nothing there. Martha

was also looking for reunion of family after running away from the south. The use of

this theme in the play is to broaden the uproot and displacement of African

Americans, not only geographically but also spiritually and culturally. The legacy of

slavery, the impact of systemic racism, and the trauma of separation from family and

community are deeply carved in the play’s exploration of migration. The boarding

house is a shrunken world of all migrated black people at that time, and characters

at that house are searching for home and family. In modern world, migration still

appears around the world. People are whether finding their original family or finding

a place where they can have better living standards to live. They are finding a place

that they can call home to live.