Close Reading on "Dutchman" By Amiri Baraka

The “Dutchman” metaphorically relates the Flying Dutchman, a ship that sails at sea with no destination, which symbolizes how “white” America ceases to recognize blacks as apart of the human race. Clay’s suit represents invisibility and alienation as it portrays how he attempts to assimilate into the white world, blending in and fitting in to it’s stereotype of who African Americans are. At the same time, Clay expresses his anger toward the same white culture he is attempting to assimilate into that is expressed when Lula judges Clay’s character. The theory behind the Flying Dutchman identifies with Lula, the white woman who seems to travel the subway preying on African-American males. Throughout the course of the play, Clay struggles with trying to blend in with the white people, internally knowing he is still a black man. In addition to the internal struggle Clay goes through, there is an external struggle with Lula, who represents white culture. Clay’s suit portrays that he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself in this white crowd, but merely blend in, even though he is the black man of which isn’t recognized to be of human as a white person.
Clay’s suit is an assimilation of what he will never be, a black man shut out from the white world as he hides behind an invisible cloak that only he can see himself in. When Clay runs into Lula, he can no longer hide behind the cloak that he sees himself through because she brings him out of his character only to prove the theory and stereotypes of black men being all the same. When Clay first gets on the train, he appears uptight in efforts to keep blending in, but as Lula seduces him, she causes him to loosen up and drop his cloak to expose him to the common stereotype of the black man. Lula repeatedly tells Clay she “knows him like the palm of her hand” (Baraka). This assertion comes from her belief, as a representation of white society and culture, that all black men are the same type of person, specifically