Biography
The Sons of Anarchy is an outlaw motorcycle club with many charters in the United States. The Charming local is the original founding charter of the Sons of Anarchy, all other charters came after the one founded by John Teller and Piermont "Piney Joe" Winston.
The Charming charter is based out of a clubhouse adjacent to the Teller-Morrow auto mechanic shop. Led by Clay Morrow, the club protects and controls Charming through close community relationships, bribery and violent intimidation. The full name of the motorcycle club is Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original; on occasion, the show will abbreviate it as SOA, though more frequently the club is referred to as SAMCRO (a rough acronym of The Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original) or Sam Crow. This nickname is also reflected in the original title of the show, Forever Sam Crow.
The club's leathers also refer to "Men of Mayhem," Jax has worn a hat that says "Reaper Crew," and their logo is a grim reaper wielding an M-16, scythe, and holding a crystal ball. Another symbol of the club is the crow. (At least two female characters affiliated with the club have crow tattoos.) As for the motorcycles, the Sons mostly ride customized Harley-Davidson Dyna Glides, Night Trains and Road Kings.
Club members have "day jobs" in local industries, but they primarily make money by doing protection runs for local businesses (protecting valuable shipments from hijacking), and by importing illegal weapons and selling them to drug gangs in the East Bay.
SAMCRO keeps meth traffickers out of Charming, which puts them at odds with the meth-distributing white supremacist "Nords" gang, headed by Ernest Darby. Unlike their rivals, the Sons are relatively diverse and inclusionist, disdaining the Nords' social perspective. The SOA also have to deal with a rival Oakland-based MC, the "Mayans" led by Marcus Alvarez, who control the neighboring territory of Nevada. Other groups in SAMCRO's orbit include the San Francisco-based Chinese-American mafia and the True IRA of Ireland, which supplies them with illegal Russian-made guns, and various affiliates in the state prison system, where many members of the club have been incarcerated at one time or another.
The club operates out of an elaborate clubhouse attached to the Teller-Morrow auto shop. The clubhouse includes a living area where Jax is currently camped out (since leaving his house to ex-wife Wendy following their divorce), a bar, a pool table and an elaborate conference table made of redwood that has a reaper logo carved into the top. The club also owns a secluded cabin in the woods and formerly had a warehouse outside of town where they assembled the illegal weapons. They are currently looking for a new warehouse space.
John Teller and Piermont "Piney" Winston co-founded SAMCRO in 1967 following their return from service as paratroopers during the Vietnam War. Six of the "Redwood Original 9" members were vets; Clay Morrow was the youngest of the original members. Following John's death on November 13th 1993, his widow Gemma later married Clay.
John and Gemma's surviving son Jax (another son, Tommy, died in childhood of the "family flaw" on , a congenital heart defect) is second in the club's line of succession after co-founder and sitting president Clay. Jax is recently divorced from Wendy, the mother of his son Abel, who is born 10 weeks premature as a result of his mother's meth addiction. Jax is also connected to Tara, a doctor at St. Thomas Hospital. The two were high school sweethearts.
The family drama is loosely based on Shakespeare's Hamlet;indeed, star Ron Perlman has said, "I'm sure they’re going to stick to the structure of Hamlet all the way to the end" of the series.Clay is based on the role of King Claudius and Gemma as a Gertrude figure. Jax stands in for Prince Hamlet himself; his reflective questioning of the SOA culture, brought on by the birth of his son, references Hamlet's melancholy over the death of the king. Additionally, Jax "communicates" with his dead father by way of his late father's unpublished journal/manuscript; Hamlet, of course, literally communicates with the ghost of his father.The drama and characterizations are also enhanced by drawing on Macbeth, another Shakespeare tragedy. Ron Perlman's portrayal of the Claudius-like character, Clay, is so guilt-ridden that he resembles Macbeth more than Claudius at times. Even more, Katey Sagal's Gertrude-like Gemma resembles Lady Macbeth because, while it is never entirely clear from Hamlet how complicit Queen Gertrude is in the murder of Hamlet's father, it is obvious that Gemma has willingly participated in the cover-up of the murder and may even have encouraged Clay in his treachery.
Lastly, narratively, the Sons are typical antiheroes.
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