The play Pure Confidence is the story of a black jockey and slave named Simon during the Civil War era. Simon is a famous horse jockey that is owned by two little children through inheritance. In the beginning of the plot, the audience sees Simon trying to convince his employer, the Colonel, buy Simon and in return he will be his jockey and trainer and eventually be able to buy his own freedom. With his immense success in horse racing, Simon racks up a lot of cash and begins to take steps towards buying his freedom. First, he buys his wife from the Colonel’s wife. Then, he buys himself a horse to race and increase his profits even more. But after an increasingly tiring race tour, an accident caused by two white jockeys, and the beginning of the Civil War, Simon’s journey to freedom becomes more complicated than buying himself free. After the war, Simon is technically a free man, but working as a bell hop under a man who used to know him as a slave jockey. He and his wife Caroline eventually are offered the chance to go back to the south with their former slave owner, the Colonel. But they decide to find freedom in the option to finally choose their own future.
In class, we discussed that historical context is crucial to fully understanding the purpose that drives a piece of literature or art. I think this idea is also prevalent in the case of Pure Confidence as it explores race and gender. Now, blacks in America have worked to reclaim the n-word as their own. It was a word that was so widely used to dehumanize slaves and further black oppression by whites. But that word does not belong to the whites that enslaved them, but the black people whose ancestors suffered at their hand. But this play is set pre-Civil War, a time that the n-word was still used by white people. Thus, it is abundantly used by the white actors in the play. Although this could be controversial and justly so, the development of the use of the n-word in the play is a testament to the greater historical context of today. Immediately following the Civil-War, or in the second act of the play, only the racist antagonist still dares to use the n-word. The change almost certainly was not this quick in reality, but obviously the playwright gets to decide how he speeds things up. If you pay attention closely, the plot of the play follows the current 21st century narrative of blacks reclaiming the n-word for themselves and the shame that should fall upon the white people who ever thought it was in their place to use it.
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