Cultural Memory In August Wilson’s Selected Plays

August Wilson(1945-2005)is one of the most outstanding playwrights in contemporary American theater.As an ethnic playwright,Wilson focuses on the influence of past and history upon African Americans’ current life and asserts that they should write their own history.Wilson’s masterpiece,Pittsburgh Cycle,includes ten plays,each depicting African Americans’ experiences and struggles in the social-cultural context of a specific decade of the 20 th century.Despite various perspectives on the cycle,not many studies focus on memory and memory writing in Wilson’s plays.Employing Halbwachs’ theory of collective memory and Jan Assman’s theory of Cultural Memory,the thesis analyzes the cultural memory in Wilson’s three plays: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,The Piano Lesson,and Gem of the Ocean.This thesis consists of three parts: the introduction,the body and the conclusion.The introduction part reviews the studies on August Wilson and his works at home and abroad.The body includes four chapters: Chapter one introduces the theory of cultural memory and the concept of cultural memory;the rest three parts respectively explore the loss and retrieval of cultural memory,the strategies of constructing memory and the functions of cultural memory.Chapter two is an analysis of Wilson’s representation of cultural memory.A regular pattern for Wilson’s characters in the three plays is their initial repression of memory and final confrontation with the painful memory.Through their recall of the memory,the playwright writes African Americans’ personal and family memory and constructs the cultural memory of“City of Bones” as their foundational myth of an ethnic group.Chapter three is an exploration of the strategies used in constructing cultural memory.The strategy of spatialization provides reference points for the construction and restoration of cultural memory,by which “Middle Passage”,the South and historical artifacts work as spatial frameworks,while the memory bearers undertake the responsibility of transmitting and provoking characters’ cultural memory.In addition,blues also constructs the cultural memory through the information that the lyrics pass on and the emotions that the music carries.Chapter four interprets the functions of cultural memory.Through writing cultural memory,Wilson writes a bottom-up history from the standpoint of African Americans.At the same time,the retrieval of cultural memory helps characters solve their identity crises and construct a group identity.The conclusion part points out that Wilson’s emphasis on the past and history in fact reflects his considerations on the relationship between past and identity.The past and memory layfoundation for the present and future.Through the construction of cultural memory,Wilson aims to write a communal past of African Americans,to raise their sense of pride and to construct a group identity.