Father Comes Home from the Wars Discussion Questions

How does Parks use the “rep & rev” (repetition and revision) technique in Father Comes Home from the Wars to deepen its messages?

Riffing is a common characteristic of jazz music in which a musician takes a familiar tune and changes it slightly—the rhythm, note length or tune. The musician often repeats the riff, or revision, in different ways in the same song. In Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parks uses rep & rev on a large and small scale. Throughout the play, Parks repeats actions with a slight tweak, allowing audiences to see them in a new light. For instance, when Penny and Homer dance together in Acts 1 and 3, audiences see how much Hero’s character has changed. The scenes in which Hero kicks Odd-See or addresses Homer’s missing foot function in a similar way. On a larger scale, Parks riffs on history itself through her use of anachronism and modernization, giving audiences opportunities to explore social issues in a new light and understand viscerally how history repeats itself.

How does Father Comes Home from the Wars strive to answer the question, “What is the cost of freedom?”

At the heart of this question lies the concept that freedom should be a basic right afforded to all humans upon birth. To pursue freedom, Parks’ characters give up many things: Homer loses a foot; Penny loses her husband; Hero loses his identity. Homer and Penny, in particular, lose these things in the pursuit of physical freedom, but as the useless Emancipation Proclamation revealed at the end of Part 3 shows, physical freedom isn’t the ultimate goal. When Hero offers Homer another foot and Penny another type of marriage, both reject the “gifts.” The characters want to practice freedom—to make the decisions that affect their future without retribution. Each of the characters must symbolically give up their identities for this freedom. Hero literally gives up his identity by changing his name, while Homer and Penny must hide their identities under the cover of night and leave behind everything they know.

What purpose do “The Chorus of Less Than Desirable Slaves” and “The Runaway Slaves” serve in Father Comes Home from the Wars?

“The Chorus of Less Than Desirable Slaves” and “The Runaway Slaves” serve the same purpose as the chorus in ancient Greek tragedies. They describe and comment on the main action of the play, allowing audiences to consider events from multiple points of view within a short space of time. Consider how the chorus discusses Hero’s decision in Part 1. Within a few pages, the audience knows the benefits and drawbacks of either decision as described by neutral outsiders. Similarly, the Runaway Slaves describe the effects Hero’s return or death could have on Penny’s and Homer’s lives. While the chorus strengthens the play’s parallels to ancient mythology, it also represents the oral tradition of African storytelling that would have been commonplace in the culture of illiterate slaves.

How does the presentation of the Emancipation Proclamation at the end of Father Comes Home from the Wars support the play’s themes?

At the end of Part 3, the Emancipation Proclamation is presented as simply a piece of paper. The words have some importance for Hero—enough for him to copy them down—but they change nothing about his existence. The paper has even less importance to the Runaway Slaves—it’s about as valuable as an alabaster foot or a silver-tipped spade. The Runaway Slaves don’t actually hear the words “You’re Free,” but even if they did, the words wouldn’t change much about their experience. This serves as a reminder to the audience that slaves had little choice but to create their own freedom. Doing so gave a sense of agency over their futures. Accepting white society’s valuation of their lives or their definition of freedom only leads to more suffering.

In Part 2 of Father Comes Home from the Wars, what does the Colonel’s white plume symbolize?

The Colonel’s white plume symbolizes arrogant pride, white supremacy and racism. As a Confederate, he dons the plume while monologuing about how grateful he is to be white. “I stand on the summit and all the other colors reside beneath me, down below,” he says. As he speaks, he addresses one man who lies injured at his feet and another man enslaved into his service. The Colonel dons the ridiculous white plume in the middle of battle, despite the target it creates. No matter how ridiculous or outrageous their words, Parks makes it impossible to ignore the terrifying power these men held simply by being white.