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- James Earl Jones (right) played Jack Johnson, while Jane Alexander (left) portrayed Eleanor Bachman, a fictionalized version of the boxer's first wife.
www.smithsonianmag.com/history/looking-back-legacy-great-white-hope-180977089/Looking Back at the Legacy of 'The Great White Hope' and ...
The Great White Hope was adapted by Sackler for a film released in 1970, directed by Martin Ritt, starring James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander, Chester Morris, Hal Holbrook, Beah Richards and Moses Gunn.
- Howard Sackler
- 1967
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Sources
- Further Reading
Howard Sackler was born on December 19,1929, in New York City, although he spent much of his early childhood in Florida. He attended Brooklyn College, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1950. He began his writing career as a poet under the guidance of W. H. Auden. In addition to his poetry, Sackler wrote a verse drama in the tradition of T. S. ...
Act 1, Scene 1
The play opens on Brady’s farm in Parchmont, Ohio. There is a discussion between Brady, identified as “the heavyweight champion;” Fred, his manager; Cap’n Dan, “a champion of earlier days;” Smitty, “a famous sportswriter”; and several members of the press including photographers. Goldie, Jack Jefferson’s manager, is also present. The group, with the exception of Goldie, is encouraging Brady to re-enter the ring in reaction to the recent performance of black athlete Jack Jefferson, who is a se...
Act 1, Scene 2
The action shifts to a small gym in San Francisco, California, where Jefferson is shadowboxing in the presence of his trainer, Tick, as Eleanor Bachman watches. Jack and Tick are working on a strategy for the upcoming fight when Goldie arrives. Jack relays to Goldie that he met Eleanor on a boat from Australia and that Eleanor is from Tacoma, Washington. When Goldie asks Eleanor to leave because the press is coming, Jack says, “she stay where she is.” Goldie knows he can protect Jack from som...
Act 1, Scene 3
Outside the arena in Reno, the day before the fight, Jack calls out to his “homefolks” and moves to their group in the back of the room. When a member of this group of black men tells him they are rooting for him because they believe that his victory will instill in them a sense of pride, Jack responds, “Well, country boy, if you ain’t there already, all the boxin’ and nigger-prayin in the world ain’t gonna get you there.” In a personal moment, Cap’n Dan shares with the audience his fears abo...
Eleanor Bachman
Eleanor (Ellie) is Jack’s white girlfriend and love interest. After meeting Jack on a boat returning from Australia, she follows Jack to San Franciscorather than returning to her home in Tacoma, Washington. She is good-natured and supportive but not a bit naive about interracial relations. Ellie is aware of the challenges Jack faces as a black man and is fiercely protective of him. Volunteering to be interviewed by Cameron, Ellie tells him her reasons for participating, saying, “I wanted to h...
Mrs. Bachman
Mrs. Bachman’s objective is to get her daughter out of arm’s reach of Jack. Although she appears infrequently during the course of the play, she surfaces to deliver an important dramatic monologue. Her speech is revealing—it helps the audience to understand her motivations concerning Ellie as well as those of other characters in the play. Her fear, her ingrained loathing for what she calls blackness, is described by association, “the black holeand the black pit, what’s burned or stained or cu...
MEDIA ADAPTATIONS
1. The Great White Hopewas made into a movie in 1970 by Twentieth Century Fox.
Racism and Racial Conflict
The Great White Hopeis a title reflective of the racism and racial conflict present throughout the work. There is an air of superiority, a notion among several white characters in the novel that they are better than their black neighbors. The rights and privileges of black members of such a society are defined by white interpretation. Cap’n Dan feels that Jack’s status as a boxer is wrong and should be corrected. He says at the outset of the play that Jack has no right to think he can be a ch...
TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. Compare the structure of Sackler’s play to a Shakespearean play of your choosing. In what ways do both works mirror or match each other structurally? Thematically? 2. Study the life story of Jack Johnson. Take note of any differences between Sackler’s work of fiction and the reality of the events that touched Johnson’s life. Does the author’s representation at all compromise the play? 3. Consider Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darknessin light of the white characters in the play. How do the feel...
Black Identity
The spirit of those behind Jack in his quest for victory is guided by their need to foster some sense of identity. Sackler captures this spirit in the voices of his black characters, using them to comment on the cultural oppression of black America for the sake of white ideals. Such ideals have meant involuntary conformity, assuming a position of inferiority, and a loss of cultural identity for black Americans. Some characters see championing the white culture as a means of earning their resp...
Foreshadowing
Elements in the plot that create expectation or help to explain later developments are represented in dramatic monologue. These moments occur in boldface within the text of the play, functioning either as part of a larger dialogue or within a dramatic monologue. When the press discovers that Ellie is dating Jack, for example, Goldie turns to the audience mid-dialogue and says, “if it gets out, God knows what could happen.” The warning to the audience proves true later in the play, when Jack i...
Dramatic Monologue
Many of the secondary characters give a speech to the audience during the course of the work. These monologues, in addition to foreshadowing upcoming events, provide the audience with insight into personal motivations for a character’s actions. Cap’n Dan’s motivations to defame Jack, while shortsighted, are not fueled by ill intent. In a dramatic monologue, he reveals his fear about Jack’s success, exclaiming, “I really have the feeling it’s the biggest calamity to hit this country since the...
Point of View
The work is operating in the third person omniscient point of view. This claim is substantiated particularly by the use of dramatic monologue that often provides insight into the motivations or feelings of many characters of the play, as opposed to being relevant only to those actions of the speaker. Not only does it predict a character’s movements, but this insight also draws the audience in, giving them a variety of perspectives from various characters of various races. Scipio’s monologue,...
Jack Johnson, Heavyweight Champion of the World
The Great White Hopeis a work of fiction based on a historical figure, a black American prizefighter named John Arthur “Jack” Johnson. Not unlike Sackler’s fictional Jack Jefferson, Johnson aggravated white America by refusing to behave in a passive, submissive fashion expected of blacks at that time. In 1908, he traveled to Sidney, Australia, to fight and defeat Tommy Burns and became the first black Heavyweight Champion of the World. Public outrage and disbelief over the victory were cataly...
COMPARE & CONTRAST
1. 1902: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is published, a story about a dangerous riverboat journey into the heart of the Congo in search of a missing white fur trader.Today: A television show called Survivorairs for the first time, pitting teams of contestants against each other in perilous, jungle-like conditions for one million dollars in prize money. 2. 1908: Jack Johnson defeats Tommy Burns in fourteen rounds to become the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world.Today: Lail...
LBJ’s “Great Society”
The era leading up to the publication of Sackler’s work was a time characterized by great social conflict and upheaval. After John F. Kennedy’s death, a grieving nation was left to struggle with civil rights issues and the Vietnam War. Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the role of president of the United States, fully committed to JFK’s liberal program of social reform in an effort to meet such challenges. Johnson had a vision of what he called a “Great Society,” and he was determined to realize this...
Perhaps it is fitting that Howard Sackler achieved such high acclaim with the success of The Great White Hope. Critics were quite impressed when the young playwright produced his treatise on racial hatred, characterizing the plot as a rather fast-moving, yet smoothly flowing entity as it seamlessly transitions from one scene to the next. The work i...
Laura Kryhoski
Kryhoski is currently working as a freelance writer. In this essay, Kryhoski considers Sackler’suse of contrasts as well as his historical consideration of the work. The Great White Hopeis a story of contrasts, of black versus white, or the dark versus the light. Two of Sackler’s white characters, Cap’n Dan and Mrs. Bachman, use these contrasts in their own dramatic monologues to express their feelings about Jack Jefferson. Their feelings are a function of their own ignorance. For these chara...
WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
1. Dreaming in Color, Living in Black and White: Our Own Stories of Growing Up Black in White America,by Laurel Holiday (2000), is a collection of stories of young black Americans’ experiences in a racist society. 2. Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter,by James S. Hirsch (2001), is the story of a black prizefighter who spends years in jail for a crime that he did not commit. 3. In W. E. B. DuBois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919−1963(2000), David Levering L...
Marion Trousdale
In the following review-essay, Trousdale provides an overview of the initial productions of The Great White Hope, examining the play’s “profound histrionic sensibility.” The theatre’s name like its shape is as self-defining and as functional as the new apartment buildings surrounding it in Washington’s Southwest are meant to be. It calls itself Arena Stage, and it is octagonal without as within to provide seats for the spectators who, arena-fashion, both enclose and participate as audience in...
Axelrod, Alan, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Twentieth Century History,Alpha Books, 1999, pp. 377−94. Contemporary Dramatists,5th ed., St. James Press, 1993. Crinkley, Richmond, in National Review,December 17, 1968, pp. 1282−83. Hungerford, Robert W., “Howard Sackler,” in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 7: Twentieth-Century American Dramatis...
Funke, Lewis, Playwrights Talk about Writing: 12 Interviews with Lewis Funke,Dramatic Publishing, 1975. Gottfried, Martin, “Introduction,” in A Few Inquiries,Dial, 1970. Sackler, Howard, A Few Inquiries,Dial, 1970. Trousdale, Marion, “Ritual Theatre: The Great White Hope,” in Western Humanities Review,Autumn 1969, pp. 295−303.
Sep 9, 2024 · Written in three acts, The Great White Hope covers the years from 1908 to 1915 and centres on fictional heavyweight boxing champion Jack Jefferson. Jefferson is a proud, outspoken African American and is romantically involved with a white woman, Eleanor Bachman.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Feb 25, 2021 · The two stars of the play and movie reminisce about their experience adapting the life story of boxer Jack Johnson. James Earl Jones (right) played Jack Johnson, while Jane Alexander (left ...
Meet the original Broadway cast of The Great White Hope on Broadway, and find out who was in the Original Cast, what parts they played and more.
Jan 24, 1982 · It opened with ''Bought and Paid For,'' by George Broadhurst, about a millionaire in love with a telephone hello-girl. Bold Mr. Brady was concerned about his production, but really worried about...
James Earl Jones (January 17, 1931 – September 9, 2024) was an American actor. A pioneer for black actors in the entertainment industry, he is known for his extensive and acclaimed roles on stage and screen.
