ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

the same moment, Mumbo commented on circumstances at the local school. According
to her, “teachers are mighty ‘ticular ‘bout the ‘pearance of de school chillus, now dey got
chers to set on, stid of squattin’ on de floor.” (126) A character that in Bannerman’s text
was merely visually associated with the Mammy stereotype, became Mammy in her
entirety, integrating simple-minded motherliness and minstrel-derived speech. Munger’s
play seems to have placed a family of minstrel puppets in a fantasy jungle where assorted
eastern references collided.
Continuing the audience’s exposure to a messy blend of exotic symbols, the
puppets travel to a faux-eastern bazaar to complete Sambo’s outfit with a pair of slippers.
Munger composed her bazaar of a slipper, rug, and umbrella merchant hut. The slipper
merchant is a markedly Middle Eastern construct, the puppet wears a turban, short top
decorated with vaguely Koranic symbols, and trousers that bag to the sides at the upper
thigh. Munger added no dialect signifiers, either minstrel or Oriental, to the merchant’s
single line: “Here are some very fine sensible shoes for the young gentleman” (128).
Quasi-Asian fabrics, what Munger refers to as Chinese brass pots from Woolworth’s, and
the curved-toe slippers of Turkish stereotypes surround the Merchant’s booth (121). The
final portrait is a simplistic transcultural vision of the “Far East.”
Munger was consistent in producing a visual and dialogic narrative that
introduced the audience to a minstrel puppet family living in a suspended fictional Far
East. Her characters were inspired by a host of minstrelsy stereotypes (see figure 44).
Mumbo wears a scarf and apron as well as a spotted dress, as might the Aunt Jemima or
Mammy domestic. Jumbo wears stripped overalls suggesting Uncle Tom. All three have
exaggerated facial features suggesting minstrelsy tradition. Sambo’s costume fits nicely
192