Princess & The Hustler: Themes (AQA GCSE English Literature): Revision Note

Princess & The Hustler: Themes

In your GCSE English Literature exam, the essay questions on Chinonyerem Odimba’s Princess & The Hustler may ask you to consider any of the themes of the play (or its central ideas). You will also need to demonstrate that you understand how the writer presents these ideas, and why they may have been presented this way.

Here are some of the key themes in Princess & The Hustler to revise:

• Belonging and identity

• Family

• Hope and ambition

• Activism and protest

Belonging and identity

Princess & The Hustler explores how people yearn for belonging and the consequences for one’s identity when that acceptance is denied. Each character, in their own way, wrestles with the challenges posed by their Jamaican heritage while navigating the demands of life in Britain. 

Knowledge and understanding

• Princess finds herself marginalised as a result of her racial identity: 

  • Princess is not invited to a party at school, presumably due to her race, though Lorna is 

  • When her brother Junior is attacked by white youths at a protest march, Princess is forced to confront the reality that her black identity makes her more vulnerable to harm (Act 2, Scene 3)

  • At the end of Act 2, Princess destroys the magical “cupboard world” after being marginalised for her racial identity

  • Princess also cuts her own hair at this point in the play, which is another rejection of her own identity

• Lorna, too, feels a lack of belonging:

  • When she rejects her blackness after Princess asks her to hide, she laments that she is “Only half…Half-sister. Half-caste. Half-everything”:

  • This indicates the loss of identity brought about by both physical and cultural displacement

• By the end of the play, Princess, in particular, is able to embrace her own cultural heritage:

  • The final, deeply symbolic scene of the play is a visual celebration of black femininity:

    • Princess is at the centre of “a line of the most beautiful Black women of all sizes and nations” (Act 3, Scene 6)

  • Princess’ “cupboard world” of pageantry is restored and expanded in the play’s final scene:

    • Wendell is speechless as he too is able to enjoy the expansive and hopeful world of Princess’ imagination

What is Odimba’s intention?

• Odimba presents racism as a force that is corrosive to one’s sense of identity and self

• By the end of the play, Odimba emphasises the importance of embracing one’s own cultural heritage, even in the face of oppression

Family

Princess & The Hustler is centred on the complex family dynamic within Princess’ family. The play’s joyful arc is completed by the transition of the James family from fraught and fractured to unified and loving. The nurture and love provided by the James family provides the backdrop for Princess’ precarious inner world to be brought to the foreground and celebrated.

Knowledge and understanding

• Mavis is presented as the model of a loving and protective parent:

  • She is consistently supportive of Princess, providing love and timely reassurance throughout the play

  • As Princess starts to lose confidence in herself and her own capacity for self-respect, Mavis provides her with reassurance:

    • She reminds her that she is “the prettiest of them all” (Act 3, Scene 5)

• Wendell is celebrated for reconnecting with his family:

  • By the final scene,in spite of his reluctance to do so, he is dressed in women’s clothing and make-up in order to participate in Princess’ mock beauty pageant

  • Wendell expresses astonishment at the richness of Princess’ “cupboard world”:

    • He states: “Mi never in mi life see any ting like dis” (Act 3, Scene 6) which includes him in the gentle celebration of beauty and femininity at the play’s close

  • This contrasts with his earlier lack of acknowledgement of Mavis’ caregiving, and his rough treatment of Junior at the docks (Act 1, Scene 6)

• Junior shows moments of care and empathy for Princess:

  • He tries to reassure Princess after Mavis has slapped her in a moment of anger:

    • He explains that “She didn’t mean it”, but has done so in an attempt to “protect” Princess (Act 1, Scene 4)

  • Junior insists Leon takes Princess and Lorna home from the Bristol Docks after Wendell has left the girls unattended, as he views the docks as dangerous (Act 1, Scene 6)

What is Odimba’s intention?

• Odimba emphasises the value of family unity and the power of loving parental figures in nurturing children

• Odimba highlights how care, protection and affirmation from parents can restore a child’s sense of self-worth, even in the face of neglect or hardship

Hope and ambition

Princess & The Hustler is a hopeful play and though it deals head on with some of the more difficult experiences faced by black people in Britain, it also foregrounds the successes that the James family have in pushing back against the structures that oppress them.

Knowledge and understanding

• Structurally, the play is bookended by the hopes of Princess that she might be crowned the winner of the Weston-super-Mare beauty pageant:

  • Odimba ends the play with an image of celebration, with “beautiful Black woman of all sizes and nations” appearing alongside Princess:

    • This celebrates and vindicates Princess’ hope that she might feel beautiful 

• Mavis, who in some ways is the moral centre of the play, is hopeful that things and people can change:

  • In a moving speech to Wendell, Mavis says that she “pray that dis country…truly see de possibilities of our children” (Act 3, Scene 5)

  • Odimba therefore aligns Mavis’ hopes with the broader hopes of activists who agitated for rights for black workers in Bristol 

• Wendell and Junior, though there is friction between them, are given a sense of direction and purpose in their shared goal of protesting against the colour bar in Bristol:

  • Junior is hopeful of the bus boycott’s success and convinces Mavis that she too has to participate (Act 2, Scene 1)

  • Wendell becomes more convinced of the importance of the boycotts throughout the play, and of their potential success:

    • At one point he states he’s a “hundred percent committed to see dem men…inna bus company uniform” (Act 2, Scene 5)

What is Odimba’s intention?

• Odimba presents hope as a vital and unifying force that connects different characters and generations:

  • Through characters such as Princess, Mavis, Wendell and Junior, Odimba shows how hope can provide strength, solidarity and direction

• Odimba suggests that it can be worth holding onto hope, even in the face of change being unlikely, as it sustains resilience

Activism and protest

Princess & The Hustler unequivocally celebrates the Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 and came about after Chinonyerem Odimba talked at length with Paul Stephenson, one of its main organisers. 

Knowledge and understanding

• Characters in the play refer to the injustices faced by black people in the UK, and specifically Bristol, at the time:

  • When providing Junior with context about his past, Wendell asks “wha’ kind of world put men in di same sentence as dogs”:

    • This alludes to real restrictions in place in public spaces in England in the 1950s

  • When Wendell becomes animated by the idea of joining protests in Bristol,  he refers to Roy Hackett and Paul Stephenson — two of the key organisers of the Bristol Bus Boycott — by name (Act 2, Scene 2)

  • Wendell also refers to more widespread institutional discrimination faced by black people in the police, fire brigade and the NHS (Act 2, Scene 2)

• Protest is a uniting force in the play, bridging the gap between members of Princess’ family:

  • By the end of the play, Mavis, Junior and Wendell are all involved in some form of activism in relation to the Bristol Bus Boycott

  • A key moment in the play, in which Mavis and Wendell are shown becoming closer once again, occurs when Mavis expresses approval for Wendell’s involvement in protests against the colour bar: “You make me proud ‘usband” (Act 2, Scene 2)

• Odimba herself describes “Black joy…in itself [as] a form of resistance in this moment” and moments of joy in the play are closely linked to successful activism:

  • In the penultimate scene of the play (Act 3, Scene 5), a radio broadcast announces the lifting of the colour bar:

    • The James family are presented as “dressed smartly” and Mavis states that they are going out to “celebrate this win…with our people”

What is Odimba’s intention?

• Odimba uses the play to foreground the experiences of oppression faced by  “historically excluded communities”

• Odimba celebrates the civil rights activism and protest that led to the defeat of the colour bar in Bristol in the 1960s

Source

Odimba, Chinonyerem. (2019) Princess & The Hustler. Nick Hern Books