"Fires in the Mirror" Response

Throughout the play Fires in the Mirror I noticed two significant words that appropriately represent the play’s overall themes, relationships, and conflicts.

- Identity:

I observed that the identity (individual as well as group) played a significant role in this play. Each character’s identity was expressed in different ways. An interesting example I found was when Ntozake explains that identity is made up by “everything that’s ever happened to us” (p.4). Similarly, physical traits including skin color, hair style, and clothing were included to indicate which group/race each character was affiliated with. For example, Anonymous Girl explains looking in the mirror as a child and focusing on her black skin. She also mentions her school experiences of different hair/clothing styles and the “biting off” of these styles by members of different groups.   

I believe that in order to understand the conflict of this play, it is important to understand that individual identity, group identity, and race identity are all intertwined.

-Injustice:

The two acts of violence that occurred in this play created feelings of injustice in each of the separate groups involved.

- Carmel Cato (a black man) explains that blacks never have any justice and that the Jewish people are “very high up – they runnin’ the whole show” (p.38).  

-  Norman Rosenbaum (brother of a Jewish man) angrily explains that the police are capable of arresting more than one of the “gutless individuals” who stabbed his brother and that he will not settle “until there is justice” (p.28).

I found it interesting how apparent each side’s vision of injustice was and how these feelings created an even larger gap between the two groups.