The Summer Dream and the Collective Notion of Identity in Ed Bullins’s In the Wine Time

This article argues that Ed Bullins’s play In the Wine Time (1968) presents collective existential black consciousness. The play showcases a collective struggle against the oppressive reality through depicting a realistic image of the depressing life of the blacks in the black ghetto. This stems from the idea that Black existential philosophy and Black existential drama present a collective notion of existence rather than the individualistic notion of existence presented by traditional, European existentialism. Bullins builds this notion among his characters throughout the scenes of the play. To this end, the play characterizes a dialogue between the individualistic level of existence and the collective one through calling on for improving the oppressive reality through choice and opportunity. The collective struggle the play shows throughout the performance intends to free the black individual, as freeing the black individual is the first step toward achieving the collective freedom. Keywords: collective consciousness, black drama, black existentialism, Ed Bullins, In the Wine Time

The Good Faith of the Invisible Man

I use Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man to consider the requirements of existentialism to be relevant to racialized experience. Black existentialism is distinguished from white existentialism by its focus on anti-black racism. However, black existentialism is similar to white existentialism in its moral requirement that agents take responsibility so as to be in good faith. Ralph Ellison's invisible man displays good faith at the end of the novel by assuming responsibility for his particular situation. The idiosyncratic development of the novel can be interpreted as an example of the ways in which existentialist values ought to be instantiated through unique individual experience. However, blackness, or any racial identity, is not itself an existential structure because it is not universal. Rather, existentialist requirements for good faith can be applied to racialized situations by both whites and blacks.