Character analysis
Reuben Scott
in Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson
Reuben Scott is a young boy living next door to Seth and Bertha Holly’s boardinghouse in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, which takes place in Pittsburgh in 1911. While his stage time is limited, Reuben plays an important role both dramatically and thematically: he connects the living with the spiritual elements woven throughout the play. His key storyline revolves around his deceased friend Eugene, who asked Reuben to release his pigeons after he died. However, Reuben, feeling scared and hesitant, decided to keep the pigeons instead, breaking his promise to Eugene. This betrayal weighs heavily on him, leading to an encounter with Eugene’s ghost, who appears and insists that the pigeons must be freed. Reuben’s straightforward recounting of these supernatural experiences—without any adult doubt—supports the play’s message that the spirit world is both real and always present.
During Zonia Loomis's short stay at the boardinghouse, Reuben also forms a gentle and innocent friendship with her. Their moments together—playing, sharing secrets, and even stealing a kiss—bring some of the play's most lyrical and uplifting scenes, contrasting with the deep traumas faced by the adult characters. Reuben symbolizes a generation that remains close enough to ancestral spiritual truths to embrace them without fear, reflecting Wilson’s theme that memory, duty, and the supernatural are intertwined in the African American experience. His journey shifts from guilt and avoidance to a sincere confrontation with his feelings, ultimately leading to his release.
Connected characters
- Zonia Loomis
Reuben's most sustained relationship in the play. The two children form a quick, genuine friendship during Zonia's stay at the boardinghouse. They play together, confide in each other, and share a parting kiss before Zonia leaves with her father. Their bond provides the play's most innocent and hopeful emotional register, suggesting the possibility of connection and renewal for the next generation.
- Bynum Walker
Bynum is the adult character most attuned to the spirit world, and his presence in the boardinghouse implicitly validates Reuben's supernatural experiences. Reuben's matter-of-fact account of Eugene's ghost mirrors Bynum's own ease with spiritual forces, suggesting a generational continuity in the capacity to receive and honor ancestral messages.
- Herald Loomis
Reuben witnesses Herald Loomis's intense, frightening presence at the boardinghouse. Like the adult characters, Reuben senses Loomis's spiritual weight, and Loomis's journey toward self-reclamation runs parallel to Reuben's own smaller arc of fulfilling a broken promise and achieving release.
- Seth Holly
Seth is the pragmatic, grounded landlord next door to Reuben's home. Seth represents the skeptical, earthbound perspective that contrasts with Reuben's openness to the supernatural, highlighting the generational and temperamental divide in how characters relate to spiritual experience.
- Bertha Holly
Bertha's nurturing warmth extends to the children around the boardinghouse. Her steady, welcoming presence provides the safe domestic backdrop against which Reuben and Zonia's friendship blossoms.