Playwright August Wilson: A Brief Biography

“Playwright August Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 27, 1945. His mother, Daisy Wilson, was of African-American heritage. His father was a German immigrant named Frederick Kittel” (August Wilson Biography). When he turned sixteen, he got in trouble because people thought he did plagiarism when they thought he wrote a professional paper that the administration at his school did not believe he wrote. The principal of the school that Wilson went to has chosen to neglect his hard work because of being accused of plagiarism, he got suspended for it. Having had enough, he dropped out and began to educate himself in a library and he read everything he could get his hands on. While writing his poetry or plays Wilson joined up with the black movement in the 60’s and eventually he began to write his playwright’s. August

In a house in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, there is solly, a slave who went back to the Underground Railroad after escaping to save the rest of the slaves and help them escape as well. In his way he has help approximately sixty two slaves escape. Citizen Barlow is a character who committed a murder and the murder was accused on an innocent man rather than him. Mostly the whole play consists of mill workers being dissatisfied with each other. The whole discomfort amongst each other leads to the burning of the mill by solly and Barlow whom have fled from Caesar to find out the culprits of the subsequent fires and unrest. In the cycle of the play, Gem of the Ocean goes through the irony that shows how it is nearly impossible for African Americans to live normal in a community or society that pushes away any form of acceptance for African Americans. If black people were to inflict crimes that are greater than that which have been committed by white people then it means that their back have been placed against walls due to an unfair or unequal