The Emperor Jones is a 1920 tragic play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill about the final day in the rule of Emperor Brutus Jones, a resourceful, self-assured African American and a former Pullman porter, who is making his escape from his island kingdom while being haunted by ghosts of his past. Lost in the jungle, Brutus encounters phantoms recalling how he got here, including a black man he killed over a dice game, a violent escape from a prison chain gang, and a slave auction of his forebears.