King Hedley II

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1985

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Summary

Background

Act Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Act I, Scene 1

Act I, Scenes 2-3

Act II, Scenes 1-2

Act II, Scenes 3-5

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Masculinity and the Cycle of Violence

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of racism.

The impact of cyclical violence on Black American men is one of this play’s most important and overt themes, and it connects this installment of Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle to several others. The early plays in the series examine the kinds of racism experienced by Black Americans in the early years of emancipation, while the later plays explore the continued impact of racist policies on majority-Black neighborhoods like Pittsburgh’s Hill District. King Hedley II in particular shows how Black men and boys are caught in a cycle of violence that is difficult to escape.

King has been caught in this cycle from a young age. In one scene he recalls being branded a troublemaker by his teachers in part because of an incident in which he was not allowed to go to the bathroom. This label followed him throughout his youth and adolescence, and he found himself anticipating and reacting to discrimination even before it happened. He felt he constantly had to fight to protect his rights, and he developed the idea that violence was an effective problem-solving technique. He also became fixated on the idea of protecting his honor through self-defense, retribution, and violence.

As an adult, King’s code of honor leads him further into the cycle of violence. In his mind killing Pernell was an act of self-preservation, if not outright self-defense. The judge did not see it this way, and King spent seven years in prison as a result of his crime. Initially, upon release, King still feels justified in his act of violence: Pernell, like so many other men who had shown King disrespect in the past, “had it coming.” At this point in the drama, it is evident that King’s moral code is still tied to retribution and punishment for disrespect and hostility. In a moment of reflection, King realizes that Pernell was in fact a whole, multifaceted person, a human being robbed of his chance to live out the rest of his life by King. King also realizes that Pernell had a son, who will grow up without the benefit of a father. King is shaken by this revelation because he realizes how he has perpetuated the cycle of violence that killed his own father.

Elmore has a similar revelation about his role in Leroy’s death. Although he too was responding to the perception of disrespect and a desire to preserve his honor, he realizes that Leroy’s crime did not merit murder and that killing the man robbed him of something too. In sharing this story with King and Mister, Elmore hopes to teach them a lesson about the futility of retributive violence and about the need for a different code of honor. That both King and Elmore have these revelations and that Elmore wants to help the younger generation suggests that it is possible to stop the cycle of violence through self-reflection and recognition of the importance of community. That both men eventually succumb to this cycle, however, speaks to the difficulty of that feat. King Hedley II creates a complex portrait of the cycle of violence that shows both its enduring nature and the possibility of escaping it.

Structural Racism and the American Dream

The impact of structural racism on the American dream is another key theme. King, Mister, and Elmore all struggle to make ends meet and feel that there is no legal way for them to attain the kind of financial success that is a possibility for white people. The play explores this theme through the characterizations of King and Tonya, through descriptions of Mister’s experiences of childhood racism, and through the depiction of King and Mister’s business ventures.

Very early in the drama it becomes evident that King is struggling. After his release from prison, King wants desperately to improve his life and to transition from illegal to legal work. The seeds that he plants, his desire to be a good father and provider, and his goal of opening a video store all speak to the importance that King places on accessing his version of the American dream. At the beginning of the first act, he is trying to raise funds to turn his phone on, but feels weighed down by his financial responsibilities: “I need the money from the refrigerators to get my phone back on. Tonya pregnant. She want a car, I gotta buy a crib, a stroller. Got to figure out how to get Ruby one of these refrigerators” (24). For King, the American dream means supporting his family, and he is determined to attain this goal.

However, as the play opens he finds himself unable to support his family by legal means. There are far fewer job opportunities for Black than white men in Pittsburgh, and for men like King who have been incarcerated, the options are even fewer. Although legal work is his ultimate goal, he struggles to find a job that will allow him to save enough money to open his video store. The one employer he does find becomes mired in legal trouble, so King resorts to selling stolen refrigerators and robbery, hoping to come up with the figure that he needs to become a business owner and leave his life of crime behind forever.

To further explore the impact of structural racism on the American dream, the play delves into King’s and Mister’s childhoods. During the same conversation in which King recalls being disciplined for asking to use the bathroom, Mister recalls being told that someday he would grow up to make a good janitor. This scene emphasizes that even as children, the possibility of adult success was foreclosed for them. Young white men were steered toward lucrative careers, while young Black men were told that they should not aim too high. King and Mister recall being very aware of this double standard, and of seeing it play out time and time again throughout their lives. The sentiment that “[e]very time I try to do something they get in the way” is often repeated (54), and in each interaction that a Black character remembers having with a white one, they recall the sting of racism. It is more than person-to-person prejudice that impacts King, Mister, and the men in their generation, though. Their neighborhood lags behind white areas in development and city investment, and there are few opportunities for young Black people. Ruby, Tonya, and Stool Pigeon all decry the myriad ways in which Black communities are left behind in 1980s America, and each of the characters at some point feels the impact of structural racism.

Fractured Familial Bonds

Fractured familial bonds is another of this play’s key themes. Each of the play’s characters is defined in part through their interpersonal relationships, and each character is in some way seeking to repair a fractured bond.

The play’s protagonist, King, is trying to repair all his relationships, and his desire to better provide for both his family drives the play’s action. His relationship with his mother, Ruby, is fractured because Ruby left King in the care of Louise to pursue her singing career. (This action, which takes place before the start of King Hedley II, is dramatized in the play Seven Guitars.) Because she was absent for most of his childhood, King resents his mother, and he vocally expresses this resentment multiple times. Yet he also wants to make sure that his mother gets one of the refrigerators that he and Mister are selling. This tension reveals an inner conflict: Although King judges his mother for leaving him, he still feels love for her and wants to be a good son to her.

King’s relationship with his pregnant wife, Tonya, is also fractured. She does not trust that King will be able to stay out of prison, and for this reason she tells him that she is hesitant to have a child with him. Although King wants desperately to be a good provider, Tonya does not think that this desire will translate to reality. Her unwillingness to see her pregnancy through is also rooted in her experience as a young mother to now-teenaged daughter Natasha. She raised Natasha in a neighborhood so devoid of opportunity that Natasha seems poised to repeat Tonya’s mistakes. Like Ruby, Tonya has a fraught relationship with motherhood itself, and she wants to “do better” this time. For King, “doing better” would mean trying to have a happy, successful family, but for Tonya, “doing better” means using hindsight to avoid motherhood entirely and get an abortion.

Ruby’s fractured relationship with Elmore parallels King’s relationship with Tonya. In their case too there is both a history of deep hurt and the desire for reconciliation. At the beginning of the play, Elmore has returned and wants to marry Ruby, but she is skeptical. She tells him: “And then you walked out. You walked out cause you was scared” (45). She points out that he “walked out” not once or even twice, but many times, and explains that she finds it difficult to trust he won’t do so again. However, unlike King and Tonya, the two do reconcile. In this way their story signals the possibility of repairing fractured relationships.