Part 3: The Union of My Confederate Parts Summary

The musician sings a song called “Misplaced Myself,” about a worker being missing while “they” search for him: “I’m long gone. / I ain’t sitting on your shelf. / I have misplaced myself.”

It’s fall 1863, back at the cabin in West Texas where the play began. The chorus of slaves—now runaways—huddles together discussing their journey. They hope Homer, who knows the land so well, will join them, but they know he’s unlikely to leave Penny, with whom he has fallen in love. When Homer arrives, the chorus reminds him that Penny doesn’t love him back. She pines for Hero; if Hero returns, Homer will lose Penny anyway. Homer agrees to join the chorus but picks up a stick and practices writing Penny’s name over and over in the dirt.

Penny arrives and inquires about the beautiful-looking word in the dirt. Homer says, “It says everything.” He asks Penny for a kiss, but she refuses. She stoically announces that the Missus received a letter stating that the Colonel had died in battle, which means Hero died alongside him. Homer tries convincing Penny to travel north with him, but she wants to stay to bury Hero. The conversation reveals that Penny is pregnant with Homer’s baby, despite her loyalty to Hero. Homer asks again for a kiss, and this time Penny obliges. The stage directions say, “Penny gently kisses Homer. And again. It’s love.” Just as Penny agrees to leave with Homer, she sees something walking toward them on the horizon. Suddenly, Hero’s dog, Odd-See, bounds onto the stage. Penny begs to hear how Hero died, but the dog speaks excitedly, unable to stay focused. Finally, Odd-See reveals that Hero is still alive, causing Penny and Homer to burst into tears. Penny hurries to tidy up the house while Homer prepares to leave without her, chanting, “Not dark enough. / Not dark enough. / Not dark enough to jet. / Not yet.”

Hero arrives, announcing that he’s given himself a new name: Ulysses. Penny and Ulysses embrace, and then Ulysses kneels, saying, “This is what I seen them do. When they get home. I’m just following but it feels right.” On his knee, Ulysses sees Homer’s writing in the dirt and grows suspicious. He has a paper to read to everyone, but he decides to hand out other gifts first. He gives Homer an alabaster mannequin’s foot and Penny a silver-tipped spade. Then he announces another “gift” for Penny: Ulysses has arranged for his new wife, Alberta, to come help on the farm. Although she’s heartbroken and shocked, Penny dutifully starts preparing the house to welcome Ulysses’ new bride.

Meanwhile, Ulysses discusses his suspicions about Penny and Homer with Odd-See, now called Odyssey. Odyssey tells Ulysses not to worry about it, because “You weren’t faithful either.” Angered, Ulysses kicks Odyssey and scoffs, “Remember your place, dog.” Ulysses confronts Homer, demanding to know whether Homer slept with Penny. During their heated conversation, Ulysses reveals that Boss-Master never freed him as promised, not even with his dying breath. Ulysses takes out his knife and lunges at Homer, intent on killing him. They struggle, and Homer breaks free. Penny emerges from house, horrified. She agrees to leave with Homer. When Ulysses tries to stop her, she rips off a piece of her dress and says, “I’m gone.” Now alone, Ulysses pulls the unread paper from his pocket and says, “The Proclamation… It says we’re free.” He puts the paper back in his pocket and prepares to dig “Boss-Master’s” grave with Odyssey’s help.

Part 3: The Union of My Confederate Parts Analysis

At the end of Father Comes Home from the Wars, Hero holds a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, but he doesn’t read it. In the lives of many slaves, the proclamation itself was largely insignificant. Overwhelming dehumanization, segregation, inequality and violence continued for African Americans following the Emancipation Proclamation. Parks strengthens the connection to contemporary times through the anachronistic use of modern-day slang, with phrases like “to jet,” “kinda-sorta,” and “true dat.” These oft-repeated slang phrases, which exemplify her “rep & rev” technique, revisit the idea of a Greek chorus introduced in Part 1. Not only does the chorus nod to Homer’s Odyssey, it hearkens back to the African tradition of a griot, or village storyteller. Consider Homer’s monologue in Part 3, which reads like poetry on the page: “Not dark enough. / Not dark enough. / Not dark enough to jet. / Not yet,” which he repeats at the beginning and end of the monologue, much like a chorus.

Penny’s character has clear plot parallels with the Odyssey’s Penelope. In Homer’s epic, Penelope waits 20 years for her husband Odysseus’s return from the Trojan War. During that time, she rejects the advances of 108 suitors, remaining faithful to her husband. The husbands in both works are unfaithful to their wives—Ulysses with Alberta, and Odysseus with the witch Circe and the goddess Calypso. Initially, both wives—Penny and Penelope—welcome their returning husbands despite their dalliances. Penny goes so far in her emotional fidelity as to begin to prepare a welcome for Ulysses’ new wife. But Penny’s trajectory diverges from Penelope’s when she discards Ulysses’ plan for their future and decides to travel north with Homer. Parks helps contemporize the epic by giving Penny agency over her own life.

Penny’s decision to leave carries significant weight because Penny truly embraces the third definition of freedom Homer introduced in Part 1: “You’re waiting for him to give you Freedom / When you should take it.” Unlike Hero, who ignores escape opportunities both the night before the war and when Smith escapes, Penny grasps her opportunity, chasing a chance of happiness with Homer and their unborn child by running north. Parks sends a strong message about self-worth by giving emotional freedom to the play’s most subjugated character, one who is enslaved, Black, and female. Unlike Penny, Hero—now Ulysses—rejects another opportunity to run north with Homer and Penny. The loyal Odyssey stays, too, even though Ulysses kicks him again, saying cruelly, “Remember your place, dog.” When Ulysses makes the decision to stay behind and bury the Colonel’s body, he makes clear that the plantation is his “place.” With parallels as strong as this, it should come as no surprise that the play’s final words are from the loyal dog holding the ridiculous silver-tipped spade: “I’ll help.”

While some critics see Hero as a classic example of an “Uncle Tom” (a Black man whose actions are excessively servile to white people), his final decision has another interpretation. At the end of Part 2, the song “This Bright Wilderness” explores the divide between a benevolent God in heaven and those who “toil bravely down below.” The song suggests that no heavenly treasure awaits. Everyone must find their heaven on earth. This message is also conveyed through the adoption of Hero’s new name, Ulysses. As a slave, Hero never “earned” freedom, which characters like Smith and Homer describe as paradise. When freedom from above doesn’t come and Boss-Master dies, Hero embraces the message of the song that opens Part 3, “Misplaced Myself”: “I done went and broke my chain… I’ve got everything to gain.” Hero creates his own “glory” by choosing to stay on Boss-Master’s farm, have children with his new wife, and adopt a new identity. He’s no longer “Boss-Master’s Hero”; he’s “Ulysses.” The name represents freedom in its reference to Union leader Ulysses Grant and in the simple act of choice.