This post is a paper I did in literature class back in spring 2018, and I’m sharing it for the world:
There are a number of themes in Hughes’s poems and other writings, such as the contrast between the ideal and the real, racial cruelty, and weariness and resignation (Roberts & Zweig, p. 852), and these often intersect. I will illustrate examples of these themes, and how they intersect in Langston Hughes’s works.
The ideal versus the real is illustrated in the poem “Let America Be America Again” (pp. 857-858). The ideal is expressed in the popular narrative of how America is a land of freedom, without tyrants, and of opportunity, and in the immigrants’ dreams. The real is expressed in the refrain of how this was never true for the speaker. He expresses that, in fact, workers are exploited, Native Americans were driven from their lands, and black people were enslaved. He uses the words, “I am the man who never got ahead/The poorest worker bartered through the years” (p. 858).
The poem “Will V-Day Day Be Me-Day Too?” illustrates how racial cruelty intersects with all three themes mentioned above. We see racial cruelty mentioned when the speaker asks whether or not he’ll have to face Jim Crow and lynching upon return from WWII (poets.org). This also shows the contrast between the ideal and the real, as FDR had said that the war was to “make the world safe for democracy”, and he mentions the liberation of various foreign peoples. However, he observes that African-Americans face oppression in USA. However, there is no resignation in the poem, in that the speaker asks whether or not things will change. In sum, the speaker observes that the reality of racial cruelty falls short of the ideals of liberty and democracy. However, he refuses to resign in despair, and instead asks whether or not the freedom for which he fought for other peoples will be granted to him.
The poem “Negro” depicts racial cruelty, in depicting how black people have been slaves for centuries, from antiquity to contemporary times. Specifically, he mentions the mutilation of the Congolese by the Belgians (when Congo was the private colony of King Leopold II) and lynching in Mississippi (Roberts & Zweig, p. 859).
The work (which is not a poem) “Negroes in Spain” also shows the intersection of racial cruelty and resignation. The work is about black people and Moors fighting in the Spanish Civil War, which occurred from 1936-1939. The author talks of how Franco uses Moors to fight for fascism, which is white supremacist. However, there is a rejection of resignation, in that the writer expresses the hope that the Moors will reject Franco (Modern American Poetry).
Racial cruelty is also depicted in the poem “Remember” (poetryfoundation.org). In this poem, the speaker urges black people, wherever they are, to look at white people, who have all the power and exploited them, and made villains out of black people. This is a concise way to sum up all the cruelty faced by black people in American society.
All three themes are shown in the poem “I look at the world” (poetryfoundation.org). The speaker, representative of any African-American, mentions being assigned to “a fenced-off narrow space”, which references Jim Crow and the disadvantages faced by black people in American society. While this may sound like a minor nuisance, these norms were enforced with the threat of lynching, and this implies cruelty. This is the real. Here the speaker does not give into resignation, but not only dreams of a better world, but states a readiness to work for it, as is stated in the poem, “I can see what my own hands can make/The world that’s in my mind./ Let’s hurry, comrades,/The road to find.” This is the ideal. The real is racism, and the ideal is equality. However, the speaker does not give into despair, but optimistically urges others to join him or her in the fight.
According to the Poetry Foundation (poetryfoundation.org), Hughes’s father was disillusioned with American racism and moved to Mexico, where he became very critical of other African-Americans. The site suggests that this impacted the younger Hughes who decided to embrace African-American society. In addition, Hughes decided to write about ordinary black people, with whom he had grown up and whom he knows. A third aspect of Hughes mentioned by the Poetry Foundation is that Hughes never lost his belief that most people, regardless of race or nationality, are generally good, and his hope for a better world. Also, Hughes had lived in a number of states and countries.
We see this reflected in his writings. His depictions of racial cruelty reflect are tied to his experiences with ordinary African-Americans, for whom such cruelty would have been life. Hughes would have been exposed to a variety of challenges faced by African-Americans because he had lived in a number of states. His conclusion that most people are good would have allowed him to reject resignation, and instead dream of a better world. Because of this, his poems convey appeals to the ideals and calls for people to change the real to match the ideal. Furthermore, we see what actually is versus what should be. Often it is so-called Realists™ who point this out, and they dismiss idealists. However, this is not reflected in Hughes’s poems. There is none of that, “Oh, sure, that would be nice, but you got to live in the Real World™.” Instead, Hughes’s speakers not only committed to working to make the ideal real, but urged the readers to also work to make the ideal real.
In summary, Hughes’s poems show racial cruelty, which were likely inspired by that which those who knew Hughes faced, and even what Hughes himself faced. However, Hughes, who was widely traveled across the States and a number of countries, remained optimistic about humanity. Because of this, his poems also reject resignation and contain calls to make the ideal real.
Works Cited
Hughes, Langston. “Selected Poems”. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing,
edited by Edgar V. Roberts and Robert Zweig. Pearson Education, Inc. 2015, pp. 849-862
“Negroes in Spain”, from The Volunteer for Liberty. Modern American Poetry.
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hughes/inspain.htm. Accessed 11 April
2018
Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/langston-hughes. Accessed 11 April
2018
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/langston-hughes. Accessed 11 April 2018
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