One

     Olsen’s characters begin to question and try to understand their place, and their world. It starts out as a sign of hope and production, but they fail to follow through on their questions. It reminiscences Whitman’s Yonnondio poem, “a wailing word is borne through the air for a moment,” but then “is gone and utterly lost.” The characters’ questions are forgotten, interrupted, or stopped by the harsh realities of life. Mazie questioned why she was not born a boy and has no place for her belongings. Her questioning released “a wailing word,” but it is “utterly lost” as her mother rushed to care for Mazie as she fainted from the heat.

     Jim begins to question why Mazie asked him “what makes people a-cryen.” He starts wondering “what calls a kid…asking questions like that?” However, the pain from working the coal mines, pushed out the idea and told her to stop “worryin her head with such things.” The Holbrook family does not push through their ideas or thoughts. It seems if the answer is not easy to answer, it is not worth thinking about.

(Listen to entire song)

     In the musical, Hair, “Where do I go” is about a young man questioning what to do because he is about to enlist in the Vietnam War. He begins to sing:

(0:57-1:10)
Where do I go
Follow the river
Where do I go
Follow the gulls

Where is the something
Where is the someone
That tells me why I live and die

 

It is as the same questioning of Mazie and Jim. Both, Mazie and Jim, want to find answers to their questions, but their answers are interfered with the harsh conditions of their lives. They get swept away by those issues just like the young man gets side tracked by the “sweet faces,” the “neon in young lovers’ eye,” and the “glitter into the city.” He searches for the answers in these distractions, but he never finds them.

At the end of the song, he sings: 

(2:15-2:50)Why do I live (beads, flowers)
Why do I die (freedom, happiness)
Tell my why (beads, flowers)
Tell me where (freedom, happiness)
Tell my why (beads, flowers)
Tell me why (freedom!)

He believes he still hasn’t found the answer; although, the answer is shouted to him-freedom. It resembles Mazie and Jim because both do not push through their thoughts because of Mazie’s fainting and Jim’s pain from working. As a result, Mazie’s revolutionary ideas and questions are never answered.