Blood at the Root
Referring to Blood at the Root by Dominique Morisseau, Raylynn, the main character is one of the charming characters and different can-do types of things every school needs. Additionally, she only becomes more sympathetic with situations as she struggles with contradictions and complexities of the situation she actively finds herself entangled in and which she operates in. Raylynn is the central character of the play. She is a black female student who decides that it is time for change within the institution. As a result, she sits on a tree where only white students are expected to sit and not a black student who is authorized to sit under the tree. In response to her sitting on the tree, noses are hugged from the same tree (Morisseau 5). The issue causes many black students within the facility to erupt into protests. Things become thicker when six other black students attacked and hacked down a white student. From this happening they are brought back into trumped for the charges, they have done. It from these different actions that Raylynn thinks that there is a need for change.
The different issues raised by the play are never clear-cut as to what is wrong and what is right or who the victim and who is the perpetrator. Amid the choral performance, music and the dance, every student explores his proximity to the different events and effectively determines their places within the tradition of segregation and hatred. A white student feels more secure at home with the black while the black community actively questions her position of privilege when the racial tensions arise (Morisseau 5). When tensions come out, the black’s student’s attempts to disappear behind the conflicts with the white students arguing on the importance of their engagement with the black students championing for the change while coming into terms with their limitations.
The overall impression of the story is that a tree is a place where everyone hugs on his appointed track avoiding trouble at all costs. It is a type of racial segregation which everyone sees as initiated by the tacit agreement. However, Raylynn whose late mother was a political activist in the nation decides to shake up the status quo a little bit and to see if she can change things a little bit from how they have been happening. At her free time, she chooses to sit under the tree within the campus where the privileged white students are expected to sit under only. From the activities which arise up, even the school administration tries to rush the event promising high rates of an internal investigation (Morisseau 7). Both De’Andre and Raylynn see the inquiry as a racist threat yet Asha lamely struggles to actively to explain it in the right way and trying to pass off it to the awful taste prank and declining to take central part within any protest actively. The conflict does not at all cut neatly across the different racial lines. At this point, Morrisseau energetically throws the curveball into real action with six black students. Colin, who actively lives inside the episode was a case of gay-bashing.
Colin, who lives in the far inside the closet, came out to Raylynn through explaining that the expression of friendship and that was not a romantic pass. Raylynn was also a ham-handed response which damaged her relationship. The cause of the fight is exceptionally murky with some insisting that the other group started the war. It is a case which can be seen when Raylynn approaches to drop the charges against her brother; the audience can hear her falling back with the same easy rationalizations with feeble excuses which Asha had previously offered her. Instead of writing the instant and brief report which she had requested, Toria produced the extended essay which links the nooses with Raylynn student council-run and Colin beating the exacerbating tensions between them up to the end of the story.
The main character Raylynn who is an anti-injustice and anti-apathy and she is out to break rules which have been set by the institution at large. Hers is a great social conscience that there is no social convention which can quash. However, her courageous decision to actively sit under the tree where only white students are expected to sit incites a blowback of the race hate which eventually embroils her brother. Her excellent character to initiate change within the institution is seen all through her different actions which he undertakes. To further show the personality in Raylynn, her best friend Asha, who is a sharp comedic and white though her grandmother raised a black associate. Her grandmother was black, and hence she has felt belonging to the black community. In conclusion, her character has been portrayed throughout the play through different actions and interactions with diverse personalities.
Work Cited
Morisseau, Dominique. “Blood at the Root” Department of Theatre & Drama 9 (2017): 1-14.