I Am Alfonso Jones & August Wilson (Post 2)

August Wilson is known as one of the best playwrights in America. He is best known for writing the play Fences, which later became a high grossing film featuring Viola Davis and Denzel Washington. He was brilliant in each of his work is set in a different decade in the 20th century and depicts the African-American experience.

When he wrote the play Joe Turner Come & Gone, he gained inspiration from Romare Bearden's painting “Mill Hand’s Lunch Bucket." When looking at tBearden's work August Wilson wrote, “What I saw was black life presented on its own terms, on a grand and epic scale, with all its richness and fullness, in a language that was vibrant and which, made attendant to everyday life, ennobled it, affirmed its value, and exalted its presence.” Both men expressed African traditions and cultures of the past and the present to their audiences. Bearden’s inspiration came from African culture itself.

When reading I Am Alfonso Jones and seeing the spiritual elements in the novel, I kept thinking about August Wilson and how he incorporated spirituality in his work. In chapter 18 of I Am Alfonso Jones, Alfonso beings being transfigured. The angel tells Alfonso that he is "becoming an ancestor...like spokes on a wheel connecting you to your past and present and those living connected to you."

Similarly in August Wilson's works he tries to connect his audience, particularly black community to unite despite the common struggles of poverty and oppression, and guide them as a whole to the recognition of their African roots. In his plays, he refers back to African ancestors, guides his black audience through spiritual healing by accepting the past. I see this also in this graphic novel as Alfonso has to accept the horrific past of his ancestors.