Flyin' West: Act 1

In the play "Flyin' West" by Pearl Cleage, there are two major situations occurring. Sophie is trying to convince colored folks not to sell their land to the white people. She believes that colored folks should have the right to own their own free land. Sophie wants the town to be colored folks only. Another situation is between Frank and Minnie's family. Frank is Minnie's husband and they come down to the frontier to visit her family. Sophie, Minnie's "sister", dislikes Frank very much because he married Minnie too fast and moved her away to England. Frank is ashamed of being colored and hates being around colored people. Frank is an abusive husband towards Minnie and doesn't care for her feelings. Frank loses his temper one day and the family witnesses his abusiveness towards Minnie.

In the play, I enjoy reading about the stories that Miss Leah has to tell the girls. They show me how life used to be back then. Her stories told us about all the abuse they had received from the white slave owners and how she was raped by a man that was much older than her. Miss Leah had gone through so much in her life and is aiding the girls with their lives. She gives them advice and helps them handle certain situations.

A new vocabulary word that I found while reading this play was pickaninnies. This word is defined as the dominant racial caricature of black children for most of this country's history. Picaninnies had bulging eyes, unkempt hair, red lips, and wide mouths into which they stuffed huge slices of watermelon. Another word I found was speculator. It was a person who trades derivatives, commodities, bonds, equalities, or currencies with a higher-than-average risk in return for a higher-than-average profit potential.

I dislike Frank very much. His attitude towards life is just ugly. He believes the white people are better than colored folks. Personally, I don't think they are any better than another race. Frank also is very abusive towards his wife because she has colored skin. If he wanted a white women as his wife then why didn't he just look for a white women instead. Why did Frank have to marry Minnie and then just abuse her later on? I believe he is sick in the mind. All he cares about is blending in with the white folks and having money like the white folks.