Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...

When he holds me close, Close as we can be,
I tell the lad that I’m grateful and I’m glad that
I’m nobody else but me! 45
Queenie, the stock ethnic character in the show, is the Cotton Blossom’s cook.
She is portrayed as a Mammy type, speaking in dialect and providing the musical excuse
for a ballyhoo (“Queenie’s Ballyhoo”) and a spiritual (“Mis’ry’s Comin’ Aroun’”). 46 Her
character provides a homey atmosphere that was “reputed the best-fed show boat on the
rivers.” Queenie’s romantic partner is Joe, described as a “shif’less no-‘count Negro”
who spends too much time with his gin and music. 47 This pair, although not legally
married, represent a traditional couple relationship with a “fighting affection, deep, true,
and lasting.” 48
Queenie’s character is an important teacher for Magnolia in the art of cooking and
what Ferber described as the traditional manner of singing spirituals and “Coon” songs.
In Magnolia’s audition at The Trocadero Club, she recalls lessons with Queenie and Joe
as she “sits with her guitar across her knees, throws her head back, closes her eyes and
45 Oscar Hammerstein II, Show Boat, Act II:9, 1946 revised script (New York: The Rodgers and
Hammerstein Theatre Library).
46 Sam Dennison defined the Mammy type as an ethnic woman “with an unbounded capacity for
love, understanding, and general qualities associated with motherhood.” Scandalize My Name: Black
Imagery in American Popular Music (New York: Garland Publishing, 1982), 363. The original actress in
the role of Queenie, Tess Gardella, performed under the stage name “Aunt Jemima.” She was actually
Italian and performed in black face (a nod back to the vaudeville tradition of white female “coon shouters,”
and an accepted stage convention even in the late 1920s).
47 Ferber, 118. Joe is the character who begins and ends the show with “Ol’ Man River.” This
song functions as a unifying leitmotiv for the plot’s fatalistic determinism, depicted by the subtext of the
river and racial traditions of Southern life.
48 Ferber, 118.
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