Porgy and Bess Reaction Essay Example

each individual.It is the white man that carries the black man to jail and at the same time, it is another white man who bails him out.

In every scene, the black man is sitting down while talking to the white man and in the one scene where a Porgy is standing, expressing is discontent about viewing the corpse, he is dragged of against his will to the jail. When the white men raid the mourning of the deceased Robbins, they interrogate only the people who are sitting or kneeling. Although this is subtle, it symbolically shows how the white man viewed himself better than and black man.When no one admits to the killing, the detective orders Peter to be locked up as a material witness until Crown in found.

Not just a witness, a material witness. It is outrageous that the blacks were regarded little more than material. In the opera, neither race respects the other. Since the whites control almost everything, the black men and women have no one but themselves and "Dr. Jesus" to provide them with strength and a willingness to go on. When the blacks and whites are separated, they continually mock one another.

The blacks see the whites and evil and suppressing, while the white men view the blacks as capital and an investment to further their wealth and social status. In the scene where the three women are lying or seated on the bed, as soon as the white men leave, they break down laughing about how stupid the three white men had to be in order to believe Bess was actually terrible ill and close to death. At

the same time the white men bicker about the women being "good for nothing. "The most obvious example of the disparity between whites and blacks in Porgy and Bess is the fact that black men and women sing throughout the opera, even to their white boss and the only call the white men "boss. " On the contrary, the whites don't sing at all and instead speak in a monotone, degrading manor. The reason that this opera is of genius is that in spite the fact that the major opera goes of the time were wealthy whites, Gershwin wrote an opera that could appeal to a wider array of audiences.

When George Gershwin was asked about his choice of sponsorship for the opera, he replied, "The reason I did not submit this work to the usual sponsors of opera in America was that I hoped to have developed something in America music that would appeal to the many rather than to the cultured few," The critics of the time did not approve of Porgy and Bess, but Gershwin confirmed that "it is not the few knowing ones whose opinion makes any work of art great, it is the judgment of the great mass that finally decides. What initially was a financial failure is now viewed as one of the most ground breaking opera's ever composed. After Gershwin labored for nine years he said, "I really can't believe I wrote it. " Gershwin most certainly created a masterpiece that is beautiful, meaningful and had an enormous impact on opera and music and society as we know it.