The Emperor Jones was published by Boni & Liveright in 1921 (premiered 1920 at the Provincetown Players). Brutus Jones, a former Pullman porter who killed a man in a dice game, has escaped to a Caribbean island and established himself as Emperor through a combination of intelligence, ruthlessness, and the claim that only a silver bullet can kill him.
When the natives revolt, Jones flees into the jungle. The play follows his night-long flight in eight scenes, each stripping away a layer of his civilized self: first his Emperor’s persona, then his American identity, then his individual history, and finally his racial history — O’Neill uses a controversial expressionist device in which Jones experiences visions of a slave auction, a slave ship, and finally a Congo witch doctor demanding a sacrifice.
The play was groundbreaking in having a Black protagonist in a serious dramatic role — Charles Gilpin originated the part and was acclaimed as the finest American actor of the season. But the play’s racial politics are deeply ambiguous: O’Neill intended it as a study of how civilization is merely a veneer over primal instincts (a Jungian reading), but the specific association of Blackness with primitivism has made the play increasingly problematic.
Collecting The Emperor Jones
First edition (Boni & Liveright, New York, 1921): In the collection The Emperor Jones, Diff’rent, The Straw.
Market values:
- First edition, fine in jacket: $150–$400
- Without jacket: $50–$150
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation.
Expressionist Breakthrough
The Emperor Jones (1920) was O’Neill’s first major success — a one-act expressionist drama about Brutus Jones, a Black Pullman porter turned Caribbean dictator, who flees through the jungle as his subjects revolt. As he runs, he strips away layers of civilization, reliving racial memories back to Africa. The play was revolutionary: it gave a Black actor (Charles Gilpin, later Paul Robeson) the leading role on a Broadway stage, and its use of the tom-tom drum as an accelerating heartbeat was a theatrical innovation that has been imitated ever since. The play’s racial politics are now deeply contested.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this play racist? This is vigorously debated. O’Neill gave a Black character tragic stature at a time when Black actors were confined to minstrel roles, and he insisted on casting Black actors in the lead. However, the play’s primitivist assumptions — the idea that Jones “regresses” to an African past — reflect the racial thinking of its era and are problematic by contemporary standards.