Langston Hughes: life and literary contributions

¶ … Poetry of Langston Hughes

The Black American culture, history, and self in the poetry of Langston Hughes

In the fields of black American history and culture, the writings of Langston Hughes, specifically his poetry, created an indelible mark in creating and promoting awareness about the plight of the Negro in the midst of a socially progressive twentieth century. As one of the icons of the cultural movement in the 20th century known as the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes has contributed to the literary genre by encouraging fellow black American writers to pursue their propaganda of achieving an equal status in the modern American society. Furthermore, his poetry tackled various issues and themes significant to black American history and culture, which became an important catalyst for intellectual and cultural progress to begin in the early period of 20th century.

This paper discusses and analyzes the important issues and themes found in Hughes' poetry, specifically the poems "Harlem," "Dream Variations," and "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." These three poems embody the development of Hughes not only as a literary, but also as a socio-political, writer who effectively embarked in a propaganda that sought to promote the culture of black Americans and reconcile their traditions, customs, and beliefs with that of the dominant white American culture. In the discussion and analysis, the researcher interprets these three poems based on secondary sources that offer enlightening criticisms and discussions of Hughes' poetry. In addition to these sources, this paper also includes in its analysis the cultural and historical contexts in which these poems were created and published: how, in the creation of each poem, the politics and culture of early 20th century American society has influenced the way he had promoted and fought for the emancipation, especially freedom of expression, among black Americans.

Further reading of the writer's life and writings reveal that Hughes goes beyond his literary prowess in depicting racial prejudice and discrimination in his society. By creating works that contain issues that have social and political relevance to American society in general, Hughes illustrate prejudice and discrimination in non-traditional manner, as evidenced in the poems "Harlem" and "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." In the texts that follow, the emergent themes contained in the three poems that are analyzed in this paper are outlined.

The first poem, "Harlem," is chosen because this is one of Hughes' earliest literary work; also, it provides the proper context in which the succeeding poems will be discussed -- that is, these poems are created while the Harlem Renaissance movement is flourishing in black American communities. Thus, interpretation in "Harlem" is based on a cultural context, using the propaganda for awareness of the black American culture as its emergent theme. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," meanwhile, is discussed second to "Harlem" because the former is directly linked to the latter: while "Harlem" centers on the culture of black Americans, "The Negro" focuses on the historical context in which the culture of enslavement and suppression was created and propagated. Lastly, "Dream Variations" is the last poem discussed in the paper because it provides an altogether new angle to Hughes' poetry. Instead of providing a general and collective thought to black American emancipation, his writing in "Dream Variations" is more subjective and centered on himself, or the black American individual, specifically. These themes become the heart of discussion of this research paper, asserting the argument that Langston Hughes' poetry includes elements of effective symbolism and imagery, as well as use of emergent themes in order to depict the continued prejudice and discrimination in the lives of black Americans in the midst of a modern American society during the 20th century.

Evidently, from the outline of emergent themes discussed earlier, the three poems of Hughes create a triad of important factors related to black American society: the black American culture, its history, and the black American or the self. Using both symbolism and imagery in the poems, the writer expresses his renouncement for racial discrimination while at the same time achieving consistency in putting the factors of culture, history, and the self amidst this major issue.

This is manifested in "Harlem," which was published in 1951, a time where he is known as a successful and acclaimed writer of the Harlem Renaissance movement. In "Harlem," Hughes outlines the dire consequences that inevitably happens when discrimination and prejudice persists in a society that is divided and in conflict. He progressively narrates in literary form the development of a rebellion, the ultimate and most violent means that the Negro can resort to if he is not given emancipation from the dominantly white American society. This progressive development initially begins with feelings of disappointment for a "dream deferred," symbolism for the most sought-after emancipation of black Americans in the early stages of history in the country.

Eventually, these feelings of disappointment give way to bitterness and hatred for the system that seems to promote and further tolerate the slavery and continued prejudice and discrimination against black Americans. By using images of products of black American labor, such as "raisin in the sun," "fester like a sore," and "stink like rotten meat," Hughes shows not only the sickening feeling of being discriminated and marginalized, he also illustrates through these lines of imagery how discrimination is linked with the reality of black Americans, which are almost always associated with hard work and compulsory labor, coupled with poor living conditions (as demonstrated in the terms, "sore," "raisin in the sun," and "rotten meat."

Of course, these feelings of disappointment, hatred, and anger are but preliminary conditions that Hughes utilizes in order to prepare his audience/readers to the central message of the poem: that is, the warning that these hard realities of black Americans have the potential to become catalysts for rebellion or any form or expression of violent outrage from the marginalized society of black Americans. His use of imagery in the first part of the poem is used to gradually condition the readers about the bluntness and directness of the lines, "Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?" Once again, there is evidence of rich symbolism in these lines, where discrimination is equated to mean "a heavy load," and effective imagery illustrating the potentiality of a rebellion is explicated in the line, "Or does it explode?"

Indeed, "Harlem" embodies the life of a black American through the years. Progressive feelings of disappointment, hatred, and anger are reflections of the life of black Americans who had only known hard work, suppression, and missed opportunities, instead of the comfort and free life of white Americans who seem to, in Hughes' point-of-view, not recognize the long history of both white and black Americans in building an economically- and politically-strong nation that is America. Aaron's (1988) elucidation on the social reality of Hughes shows that Harlem the place is an illustration of the conditions and realities depicted in the poem, "Harlem." In his analysis, he attests that Harlem is "...both a place and poetic invention, a promiscuous urban scene where one could be alone in and part of the crowd, a compost heap that fertilized his imagination." Indeed, "Harlem" the poem is created to give black Americans a chance to reflect on their history of marginalization and discrimination, and, drawing strength from the poem, the poet successfully achieves awareness, and perhaps, incites his readers to take positive and constructive action that shall pave the way for true emancipation to occur. True emancipation in the Harlem Renaissance tradition, and in Hughes' terms, means taking part in cultivating attitudes of "optimism, pride, and confidence in black culture" (Barker, 1997). Truly, "Harlem" is a literary work that seeks to emancipate the minds and hearts of black Americans, with its creator, Hughes, hoping that this kind of emancipation shall become an opportunity for his fellow black Americans to take action and pursue better lives by achieving intellectual development and strong solidarity with their communities and society.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers," though socially and politically parallel with the points and issues addressed in "Harlem," differ from the former in that the latter focuses on the historical roots of the black American race. Hughes' effective depiction of black American history conveys the truth about their race: they were once people with a glorious culture and civilization, yet, they have failed to bring this in the modern times, even failing to improve their lives by becoming slaves to a race whose history pales in comparison to the black American's.

With brevity and rich use of imagery, the poem serves as the reader's 'mirror' to the past, with Hughes using the symbol of a river to illustrate how the black American race's origins is associated to the rivers that helped spur human civilizations through the years: the Euphrates, Congo, Nile, and Mississippi rivers. The ultimate message of the poem is that the black American race had been through periods of history where human civilization has developed, implying that without the presence of the black American, human civilization would cease to emerge and develop to become what it is at present. In every stage and period in history, the black American is present, as demonstrated in the line of imagery repeatedly used in the poem, "My soul has grown deep like the rivers."

The poem portrays the Negro as the cause rather than effect of human civilization. "The Negro" is a historical narrative of the life of the black American. Evidently, he had been present where human civilization thrived. Thus, human society in general has the obligation to preserve the race where humanity has possibly originated or came from. The black American race traces its roots from humanity's earliest peoples, and it is through them that humanity can learn more from their past and hence, they can appreciate the present and their future better because of these direct descendants of the earliest humans on earth. Put in the historical context, pure imagery and symbolism in "The Negro" gains deeper meaning, relevance, and significance to the reader.

However, it is important to note that the poem is also put in the political context that Hughes had been put in during his time. The poem, though written in a purely historical context, can also be interpreted as an attempt to create awareness to the reader about the regretfully sorry plight of the black American race as it embarks in a new period and society -- that is, the period of intellectual and material progress, modernism.

It becomes apparent in the poem that Hughes feels threatened with the emergence of modernism, fearing that the black American heritage will be erased from the hearts and minds of black Americans, specifically, and humanity, generally. For him, the prevalence of modernism marks the further dominance of the white American, which means marginalization of the black Americans would prevail, and perhaps, become tolerated, in the same way that black slavery became a legitimate practice in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In line with this argument, Higgins (1988) supports the claim about Hughes being averse about the promise and eventual effects of modernism to humanity, and most especially, to the black American society. He contends that Hughes considers modernism as "intellectually pretentious," a period and movement in history wherein humanity loses its significance, and the Negro society being put in danger of 'social extinction,' which means the eventual loss of the heritage and culture of the African race. For Hughes, humanity can only realize its full potential is he or she uses his/her skills and talents rather than leaving humanity's plight to science, technology, and development, concepts that involve only machines, objects as commodities, and other tangible materials that puts greater value to the object itself rather than the maker of the object.