My unit focuses on an exploration of motifs in August Wilson’s play Gem of the Ocean. Chronologically first in Wilson’s “Century Cycle”-- a series of ten plays each meant to represent a decade of African-American life in the 20th century, Gem of the Ocean is set in 1904 Pittsburgh. However, the play examines also history, legacy, and ancestral/family trauma through a metaphysical journey back to the Maafa or Middle Passage.

Wilson develops his meaning through a variety of dramatic motifs-- especially fire, water, the stars, quilts, and walking sticks. While my students will track these motifs throughout the play in order to develop arguments about how each contributes to  and complicates the meaning of the work as a whole, this Learning Lab collection will collect images related to these motifs to engage students in a “close-reading” of visual text to provoke initial understanding of their power as symbols.

NOTE: I have also included some additional images that I would add as resources and points of discussion for my daily GoogleSide decks on the play. Some are meant to illustrate historical background relevant to specific references in the play (ex: images of Cinque and the Amistad, tintype portraits to help visualize main characters), while others act as provocations to begin discussion (the Sankofa symbols).