Father Comes Home From the Wars

Though enslaved people were usually not allowed to legally marry, Penny considers herself Hero’s wife—as does Hero before he arrives with a new wife in Part 3. Penny is an important side character who helps illuminate the theme of Making New Choices Versus Repeating Old Stories.

In Part 1, like her namesake Penelope in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Penny pledges to wait for Hero until he returns from his quest. In Part 3, Penny has slept with Homer and is pregnant with his child, but she has never kissed him because she is still in love with Hero. She states that there is “No room in [her heart] for nothing else” (123). When Hero returns, Penny is initially willing to stay by his side even after he says he has a new wife, named Alberta. She even begins to get the house ready for Hero and his new wife, despite knowing that she will not get to be with the man she was waiting for and loved. However, when Hero attacks Homer and tries to kill him, Penny realizes she is faced with the a choice: She can either remain in her marriage, like her namesake Penelope did, thereby propping up patriarchal structures, or she can leave her husband for her personal freedom and happiness. Penny decides to “break the chain” of the wronged women who came before her by forging a new path for her character (152).

Homer is Hero’s foil and Penny’s love interest. His rivalry with Hero is expressed through their differing views on freedom. Homer says that Hero is “waiting for [the Colonel] to give [him] Freedom / When [Hero] should take it” (43). Homer agrees with Smith that they have a right to “steal themselves” by becoming fugitives from slavery, though Hero disagrees.

Of all the characters in the play, Homer says he’s “known [Hero] longest / And […] in some respects [Homer] know[s] [him] best” (39). Hero agrees. At this point, only Homer knows that Hero betrayed Homer to the Colonel when Homer tried to escape enslavement; Hero did this in exchange for a promise of freedom that the Colonel revoked. When Homer reveals this to their fellow enslaved people, they start seeing Hero as a “non-Hero.”

Unlike Hero, Homer stays with Penny in west Texas, knowing she is “rooted” there. He loves her enough to sacrifice his own desire for freedom in order to be with her. When Hero returns as Ulysses and Penny goes back to him, Homer is willing to accept her choice, saying that “it’s not his place to know” her mind or dictate her decisions (154). He affords Penny choices of her own, which Hero does not.

The Colonel is the primary antagonist of the play. He is an enslaver who enslaves Hero, Homer, Penny, Old Man, and the members of the Chorus. In Parts 1 and 3, he does not appear in the action of the play, but the people he enslaves refer to him often as “Boss-Master.” He only physically appears in Part 2, where his interactions with Smith represent the dominant views of white enslavers in the Civil War era.

The Colonel has white supremacist beliefs. He says, “As a white I stand on the summit and all the other colors reside beneath me, down below” (83). He believes that white people are inherently superior to other races. He finds solace in the fact that, in his opinion, no matter how economically disenfranchised he might be, “and no matter how thoroughly [he fails], [he] will always be white” (83). He displays his inhumanity in his interactions with Hero, speaking of Hero as property and treating him without any thought for his dignity.

Though the Union soldier Smith only appears in Part 2, he is a vital character. He is a private in the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry, though the Colonel thinks he is a captain because he put on a captain’s coat after being injured in battle and losing his division. Though the Colonel thinks he’s white, Hero deduces that Smith is in fact a Black man who can pass for white. Smith tells Hero he typically does not choose to pass as white because “that’s not [him]” (94). However, the Colonel said he’d “be obligated to shoot [him] on the spot” if he was a Black man (59), so Smith does not correct the Colonel’s assumption.

Smith is a foil to the Colonel. While the Colonel treats Hero like an object, Smith treats Hero like a human being. The Colonel forces Smith to guess Hero’s “purchase price” (75). While the Colonel touches and prods at Hero without permission, Smith waits until Hero says “Alright” before he agrees to humor the Colonel’s game. Smith sees Hero as a man because, as a Black man who can pass for white, he understands that Hero should be an equal and autonomous person.

Later, Smith tries to get Hero to understand freedom as he understands it. He tells Hero, “We won’t have a price. Just like they don’t. That’ll be the beauty of it” (95). His words do not get through to Hero, who subsequently asks, “Where’s the beauty in not being worth nothing?” (95). Smith is a kind-hearted man who tries to get Hero to leave the Colonel’s enslavement, but ultimately, he fails, as Hero needs to find his own path to freedom.

Odd-See, who is attributed in the cast list and in-line as “Odyssey Dog,” only physically appears in Part 3, though he is discussed in Part 1, where the characters search for him after he ran away when Hero kicked him. Hero got him when he was a puppy and named him “Odd-See” for his “funny eyes” (130). This is an allusion to Homer’s Odyssey and to Odysseus’s dog in that epic, named Argus; it also alludes to Odyssey Dog’s different perspective on the main plot points. Like Odysseus’s Argus, who is the first one to notice Odysseus’s return to Ithaca, Odyssey Dog is the first to know that Hero is on his way back to west Texas. Both dogs hold knowledge of their owners’ return, but neither can communicate that to the humans around them—even Odyssey Dog gets continuously sidetracked as he tries to talk to Penny and Homer.

Odyssey Dog is often able to see what others can’t, and he serves as an interlocutor to Hero, demonstrating both faithfulness and honesty. As Hero becomes alienated from Penny, Homer, and the Chorus upon his return, Odyssey Dog is sometimes the only character on stage that Hero can voice his thoughts to. Odyssey Dog points out Hero’s hypocrisy in getting jealous over Penny and Homer, saying, “You weren’t faithful either” (153). For Odyssey Dog’s honesty, Hero kicks him: Hero doesn’t want someone to be honest with him, but to take his side without question. Odyssey Dog follows this with a speech on the nature of being “faithful” (153). He says that faithfulness for a dog is “given,” but it isn’t a given for a human; he advises Hero to drop the topic if he wants to retain his friends and allies. Odyssey Dog can see the larger picture where Hero can’t, though Hero ultimately does not take his advice.