Self-Identity
The central theme of the play is self-identity, the search for it, the essential significance of finding it and how it can be established. Self-identity here is symbolized by the concept of finding your “song.” Self-identity also means, because of the context and connotation of the characters, the especially difficult process of establishing a sense of identity within the African-American community in which identity has the historical dimension of being imposed from without by external forces.
The Great Migration
The story takes place in Pittsburgh in 1911 and features both natives northerners and transplanted southerners. The time, place and character integration (geographic, not racial) all point to the thematic consequence of the Great Migration, that period in history following Reconstruction which witnessed a mass exodus of former slaves and their post-abolition offspring to the large urban areas in the north. This movement contributed to the lack of identity engendered by the imposition of identity connected to Confederate ideology.
Racism
The titular Joe Turner does not actually appear in the play except for being mentioned by a character as the man who illegally forced blacks into slavery on his plantation. That character, Herald Loomis, is exemplified as the person whose “song” has been stolen by another, causing them to live their whole lives according to another person’s rules. The narrative thus focuses on Herald’s attempt to locate his “song” and take it back. Racism is played out thematically in the story of young man from North Carolina who, having rejected white imposition on identity in the south by moving north also find racist at work there and also rejects it by refusing a job requiring extortion to the white boss.
