ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

crowd of Negro sinners.” 219 Brown combined the stereotypical dialect produced by
minstrelsy and a simplistic worldview to characterize the Sinners through comic
exaggeration. Noah warnes them of the coming flood and the Sinners deride the threat,
assuring themselves that they “got umbrellas” and that Noah has “got watuh on de brain”
(89). Brown seems to have connected race, ignorance, and wickedness thematically in
this play. While Brown’s Noah indicates that all will be drowned, “both black and white
alike,” the substance of the representation makes a clear connection between “the Negro”
and an impure society.
Later, a young black female, the future wife of Noah’s son Ham, defies her sister
and joins the Ark. Brown seems to be building on the legend of Yonah, a servant girl of
the race of Cain, who stowed away on the Ark and later became wife to one of Noah’s
sons. 220 If familiar with the legend, the audience would have expected Scram to secretly
hide in the Ark, to be revealed later by Ham. If familiar only with scripture, the audience
would be surprised by the adaptation, since in the scripture only Noah’s son’s wives were
permitted on the Ark.
Despite beginning the play with a racist implication, that the world must be
purged of black humans to achieve moral purity, Brown establishes a structure that
reverses many expectations. In Brown’s version, the young girl, Scram, loves Ham and
will follow him even if he never returns her affection. Scram’s sister warns that it “ain’
219 Forman Brown, “Mister Noah,” The Pie-eyed Piper and Other Impertinent Puppet Plays (New
York: Greenberg Press, 1933), 89. From this point on, I will use parenthentical documentation for the
lengthy selections from this play.
220 The story is not even indicated in the scripture, but it is often used to explain why the sins of
humankind did not wholly disappear after the flood. The notion is that Yonah’s presence prevented the
complete purification of the Earth.
167