John Augustus Stone chooses Metacomet as his inspiration to write a play about an "aboriginal" American hero. Metamora, chief of the Wampanoags, is a classic hero; he wants to protect his family and his people, and hopes for peace with a race who do not wish to have peace with him.
Metamora’s good character was especially evident to me when he said, “If my rarest enemy had crept unarmed into my wigwam and his heart was sore, I would not have driven him from my fire nor forbidden him to lie down upon my mat.” (p 21)
There is such a difference seen between the English and the Indians, even when they are helping each other; there is no impression of them ever living in peace together. He saves Oceana and is thanked for it, but he is still seen as a heathen in her eyes. I think the relationship between Metamora, Walt and Oceana in this play is done in a way to make each side seem capable of being kindhearted and sympathetic for one another. Often in stories, one side is the bad while the other is seen as the good.
I wonder how the people of this time (not including the Native Americans) felt about this play as they watched it. The English are portrayed in such an abominable light, while the Indians are sincere and peaceful.
Well, except for Annawandah, but anyway…
Metamora will do anything for the safety of his tribe, yet Mordaunt is prepared to hand his daughter over to marry a man she doesn’t wish to marry, to save his own life.
Other than Oceana and Walt, there is no benevolence seen among the English. We see the English pillage against the Indians as we have read previously, and see the many values of the Indians who were considered uncivilized. It's interesting to point out because the entire situation was and still is ironic!
Nahmeokee strikes me as very soft spoken and her character is a significant part of this story, because without her, I don’t think Metamora could have the will power to be the hero that he is. She is very peaceful and brings a sort of calm to Metamora. Meta tells Nah that their son will not be the white man’s slave and she responds by saying, “Thy talk is strange, and fear creeps over me.” (p 18) She is so peaceful and sadly, her life is completely destroyed. She is imprisoned, and then tortured when she is free, because she is free amongst people who want to harm her. Her child dies and towards the end Metamora kills her as the “pale faces” are coming to attack them. I wasn't expecting that, at all. Meta explains his actions by saying, "She felt no white man's bondage." (p 39) Pretty powerful; He kills her instead of watching her become a white man's slave. I think it's weird that he stabs his wife, but at the same time, how could he watch her enter slavery, torture, or death by the hands of the English?
In Act III, a prevalent theme in Native American stories (in my opinion, anyway) is seen when Oceana says, “Fiends and murderers!” to which Metamora replies, “The white man has made us such. Prepare.” (p 28) I think no matter how many times a person can read something along those lines; the effect of it is always powerful.
Luigia Gregory
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I found this play a little confusing. I kept having to go back to the “player” list to find out who a character was, even though it wasn’t very helpful. Metamora starts out being a good person who gets along well with the English. I agree with Luigia that Oceana is grateful that he saved her, yet seems to look down upon him because he is a “heathen.” Walter is the voice of reason, stating that the Indians have their own ways and only God can judge them. I’m sure Walter is in the minority. The English look down on the Indians because they are “Godless.” They are intractable in that regard. I wonder why that was? Religion teaches people to love one another. But I guess that didn’t include Indians.
ReplyDeleteWhen the English summon him, Metamora starts to get suspicious, with good cause. His trust is starting to diminish. And certainly the English never trusted the Indians. When he meets with the English, he tells them, you left England because of oppression; why are you trying to oppress us now? The English are kind of depicted as the true savages. And at the end Metamora hated the English, and the English are responsible for his transformation.
Mindy Pigue
After reading Metamora, it reminded me of the other reading, Washington Irving’s Philip of Pokanoket. I also noticed that Metamora is sometimes referred to as King Philip by the English, a name which the character seems to detest in the play. I was also wondering if this play was based on the same King Philip as in “King Philip’s War” in Mary Rowlandson’s narrative.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, I agree with Luigia, Metamora’s character is a somewhat good one as compared to the negative portrayals of Native Americans we’ve read so far. He has pride, courage, respect and love. It is interesting that from the English perspective Metamora is referred to as “the grandest model of a mighty man” (10) and “the noble sachem of a valiant race” (11) but these qualities don’t really matter because “he is a heathen” (12). It is also interesting that from the Indian’s perspective God does not discriminate, Nahmeokee says “does not the Great Spirit look on him as he does on us?” (16).
This play stresses the fact that the primary motive of the English was to have the Indians removed from their ancestral lands. The play also stresses the lengths in which the English took to accomplish this task. The Indian’s on the other hand seemed to be the ones living in fear most of the time. They are forced to move constantly and to take up violent means for surviving, for which they blame the English, “The White man has made us such” (28) (as Luigia also pointed out). Metamora is indeed a tragic figure who to the very end refuses to give in to the impulses of the English.
The play also gives the reader the sense of both sides of the conflicts at that time. We get the point of view of the Indians and the English simultaneously. The reader also senses that not everyone on each side seems to be in agreement. For example Metamora has to deal with Annawandah a traitor/one of his own people who betrays him and on the English side, we have Oceana and Walter who seem to be sympathetic towards the Indians. I also found Metamora’s love for Nahmeokee and their child extremely endearing. It demonstrates how similar we are as humans; we would go to great lengths for our loved ones. I think sometimes it might be better to focus on our similarities rather than our differences.
-Vedi Ramdhanie
"Metamora; or, the last of the Wampanoags" seems to part from the Puritan description of Native Americans as barbaric creatures. Finally we see a true hero,a doomed hero amidst the impending future that his audience already knows awaits him. I liked this play because its romanticism ululates around the character of Metamora rather than any other English character. Speaking of which, for the most part of the play we can grasp on the greed and cruelty of the white settlers as it had never been mentioned before in any of the class readings, with the exception perhaps of Ben Franklin's writings on the "Indians", which I must say were pointed more at poking fun of the English than at glorifying the Native American cause. Overall, I enjoyed this play because of its long-time-coming humanization of the Natives, and its tragic and gradual turn for the worst, as it indeed was the case.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started Reading this play, I didn't realize that it was about the Indian chief King Phillip, as was in the reading by Irving, though his felt like a more historical account. I find it interesting that Metamora was friends with the "white man," and how his father taught them how to eat off of the land when they first landed in America, and how they then turned on him and his tribe because he would not give up his land for them. I know that this is true, however I still find it hard to read. The "white man" was greedy and nothing was ever enough. No matter if Metamora had given up his land, they would still then want more, and he says that during the second act of the play I believe. That is what start the war; the fact that he wouldn't sell his land to the "white men." I feel that what happened during that time to the Indians was horrible, they should never have been savagely murdered just to acquire their land, it's not worth it. In Irvings reading as this, we learn about the death of Metamora's wife, only here in the play we get a glimps as to what her character might have been. Despite the fact that this play is fictional, it has chatacters that are not and I feel that, though their actions might not have happened in real life the way they do in this play, there really is no way of us to be able to know any better for it.
ReplyDeleteOn the play as a whole, I felt it to read smoothly. A lot of plays sometimes are hard to follow and have way too many characters to follow, but I feel that that was not the case in this play. I feel that the main characters were established enough to allow for the reader to be able to have an idea about who they were and about their character. In Act IV, when Oceana asks Fitzarnold to let Nahmeokee go, she was being a little naive. After all, she had denied his hand in marriage and therefore he was not able to get her fortune, so why would he actually try to help her? If someone had wronged me and all I had a mind like Fitzarnold, who believes that revenge was the only way, I would have done the same thing. In a way he kind of makes it like Oceana is responseible for Nahmeokee's death because she was the one who asked to have he freed and it was her being freed that, according to this play was the death of her. In Irving's story, if I remember correctly, I think he had said that she had died while trying on her escape from the imprisonment, not that she had been set free; escaping and being set free, I feel are two different things. Overall though, I feel the play was not bad.