Golden Boy by Clifford Odets

First produced: 1937; first published, 1937

Type of work: Drama

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of plot: 1930’s

Locale: New York

Principal characters

• Joe Bonaparte, a prizefighter
• Tom Moody, a fight manager
• Lorna Moon, his mistress
• Mr. Bonaparte, Joe’s father
• Eddie Fuseli, a gunman
• Tokio, Joe’s trainer

The Story:

Tom Moody, a fight manager, and Lorna Moon, his mistress who wants to marry him, are having an argument about Tom’s wife, who will not give him a divorce. Tom, wanting money for the divorce, needs to find a winning fighter. While they are talking, Joe Bonaparte arrives to tell them that Moody’s fighter has broken his hand and cannot fight that night. Joe, whom nobody knows, persuades them to let him substitute, and he wins.

Joe, a musician, had always wanted a good violin, and his father had bought him one for his twenty-first birthday. When Joe returns home, his father, who has not been told of the fight, reads of it in the papers and is very much distressed. He tries to persuade Joe to give up fighting and continue his study of music, but Joe wants to fight. His father, hurt, does not give him the violin.

Joe fights well after that, but there is a serious conflict between the sensitive musician that he truly is and the brutal fighter he has to be. He holds back in the ring, fearing that he will ruin his hands for the violin. When Moody tries to persuade him that fame and money will be more important than music, he succeeds only in antagonizing Joe, who threatens to quit. Lorna agrees to try to persuade Joe to reconsider. Joe is basically a musician, but he has been ridiculed and hurt by people. Fighting is not a part of his nature, but he wants to fight back and music cannot do that for him. While he is explaining all this to Lorna, he has already decided to remain in the ring. When Joe is preparing for a fight tour, Mr. Bonaparte asks Lorna to help the young man find himself. When he tries to give Joe the violin, the boy refuses it. Then he asks for a blessing, which his father refuses to give.

Joe’s tour is a great success except for one fight. He did not fight well on that occasion because he saw a man with a violin and was reminded of his music and his own past. Moody realizes that Joe has to be prevented from having any contact with his family and his past.

The fight world changes Joe’s personality. He likes the money and the notoriety. He buys an expensive sports car, which he drives recklessly, and he becomes difficult to manage. Eddie Fuseli, a gambler and a gunman, wants to buy a piece of Joe, and Joe agrees, to Moody’s dislike. He tells Lorna to take care of Joe in her own way. Joe falls in love with Lorna and asks her to give up Moody. She denies loving Joe and says that she cannot leave Moody because she feels sorry for him. Joe knows that she is not telling the truth when she begins to cry. They talk about their love, and Joe demands that she tell Moody at once. She says that she will, but when she goes to tell him she learns that his wife has agreed to a divorce and that they can be married in a few months. Because of this, she is unable to tell him about her love for Joe. Later Joe has an argument with Moody and demands that Lorna tell Moody about their love. Although Lorna denies that there is anything between them, she confesses the truth to Moody when they are alone again.

One night Mr. Bonaparte comes to see Joe fight. Fuseli is disturbed because he does not want Joe to see his father, but Joe sees him anyway. He also sees Moody and Lorna together. Mr. Bonaparte, seeing that Joe has completely changed, finally gives his blessing to Joe’s career. Joe cries after his father leaves. During the fight, Mr. Bonaparte goes back into the dressing room rather than see the fighters hurt each other. Joe returns after he wins the fight, but when his trainer attempts to remove the gloves, Joe tells him that he will have to cut one of them off. His hand is broken.

Now that he can never be a musician, Joe is all fighter. Moody and Lorna announce that they are getting married in a few days. Joe is still in love with Lorna, and it is obvious that his unhappiness is hurting his career. While Joe is fighting badly in his most important match, Fuseli blames Lorna and threatens to kill her. Joe, however, returns to the dressing room a victor. A few moments later they are told that the other fighter died after being floored by Joe’s knockout punch. Everyone leaves the dressing room except Lorna and Joe. She tells him that she loves him and asks him to go back to his music. He shows her his mutilated hands. However, he decides to give up fighting, and he and Lorna go for a wild ride in order to celebrate.

Fuseli, Moody, and the others, not knowing where Joe and Lorna have gone, go to Joe’s home and drink and talk while they wait for his return. The telephone rings in the middle of an argument to decide who will own Joe in the future. Joe and Lorna have been killed in an automobile accident. Mr. Bonaparte leaves to claim Joe’s body and bring him home where he belongs.

Bibliography

Brenman-Gibson, Margaret. Clifford Odets, American Playwright: The Years from 1906 to 1940. New York: Atheneum, 1981. Reprint. New York: Applause, 2002. A thorough psychoanalytical study of Odets. Discusses the origins and psychological significance of Golden Boy.

Cantor, Harold. Clifford Odets, Playwright-Poet. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2000. Examines all of Odets’s plays as a unified whole, tracing their common themes and poetic style. Describes Odets’s role as a myth-maker and voice of the Jewish middle class.

Clurman, Harold. The Fervent Years: The Story of the Group Theatre and the Thirties. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945. Clurman tells how Odets wrote Golden Boy to rescue the Group Theatre from insolvency. He offers worthwhile artistic insights into the play.

Frick, John W. “’Odets, Where Is Thy Sting?’ Reassessing the ’Playwright of the Proletariat.’” In Realism and the American Dramatic Tradition, edited by William W. Demastes. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1996. Detailed analysis of Odets’s plays, enumerating their common characteristics, surveying their critical reception, and describing their “symbolic realism.”

Herr, Christopher J. Clifford Odets and American Political Theatre. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. Examines Odets’s plays within the context of his life, including the pressures placed upon him by the Group Theatre, Hollywood, and the House Committe on Un-American Activities.

Miller, Gabriel, ed. Critical Essays on Clifford Odets. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991. Useful collection containing two essays specifically about Golden Boy; this play is also referred to in many of the other essays.

Shuman, R. Baird. Clifford Odets. New York: Twayne, 1962. Shuman devotes one nine-page section to Golden Boy and refers to the play frequently throughout his critical biography.

Weales, Gerald. Odets: The Playwright. New York: Methuen, 1985. A sensible starting point for beginners, this lucid, concise overview of Odets includes a six-page section devoted to Golden Boy, along with frequent other references to the play.