A Historical Approach on Racism and Identity Crisis Through Langston Hughes’s Mulatto

Hughes, Langston. "Mulatto," The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, ed, David Levering Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994

Racism is a powerful word some people are still facing. Racism is when people judge because of skin color, looks, and many more. People are are involved with this are struggling. Having a difficult time to feel comfortable from the rejection, judgement, and being ignored. It has caused in a huge impact for the last decades. Race is the center of attention and people want to be heard. Free of speech is what helped people’s lives from hearing what’s going on in people’s lives. African Americans are one of the top race that white people have against with. African Americans express how they feel through materials by speaking up. In this paper I will argue that the impact of Racism people express how they feel through free of speech.

Langston Hughes’s poem “Oppression” is expressed in the form of a protest. However, his composition of words are all contrary to the title. Langston begins his poem expressing negativity, even tragedy. “Now dreams are not available to the dreamers, Nor songs to the singers.” This logically is a tragic statement due to dreamers need dreams to be dreamers and singers need songs to be singers. The nature of tragedy is contrary to the nature of oppression, which is expressed here as a force that divides a harmonious relationships (e.g singers and there songs). At the end of langston’s poem he makes a form of prophecy or positivity. “But the dream will come back, and the song break its jail.“ this is contrast to his previous writing assuring the

Langston Hughes was the leading voice of African American people in his time, speaking through his poetry to represent blacks. His Influence through his poems are seen widely not just by blacks but by those who enjoy poetry in other races and social classes. Hughes poems, Harlem, The Negro speaks of rivers, Theme for English B, and Negro are great examples of his output for the racial inequality between the blacks and whites. The relationship between whites and blacks are rooted in America's history for the good and the bad. Hughes poems bring the history at large and present them in a proud manner. The injustice that blacks face because of their history of once being in bondage is something they are constantly reminded and ridiculed for but must overcome and bring to light that the thoughts of slavery and inequality will be a lesson and something to remember for a different future where that kind of prejudice is not found so widely.

In analysis of the texts of these plays, it becomes evident that both periods and cultures suffered from similar types of problems with interracialism, though to a slightly greater and more violent extent in the latter piece of Hughes’s. However, merely analyzing the texts sketches an often incomplete picture, as these plays were, to a large extent, created for the purpose of protesting and attempting to manipulate the very attitudes they presented. Therefore, in order to truly consider how the nature and extent of attitudes towards interracialism had evolved from the pre-Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance, one must look not only at the texts of the plays, but also to their critical commentaries, manipulation in pre-production, and audience responses. These sources outside of the texts greatly contribute to the conclusion that although discrimination, maliciousness, and brutality were problems that accompanied interracialism in both periods, they were slightly increased in intensity and nature in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930’s compared to the late 1850’s.

Langston Hughes is one the most renowned and respected authors of twentieth century America not simply one of the most respected African-American authors, though he is certainly this as well, but one of the most respected authors of the period overall. A large part of the respect and admiration that the man and his work have garnered is due to the richness an complexity of Hughes' writing, both his poetry and his prose and even his non-fictions. In almost all of his texts, Hughes manages at once to develop and explore the many intricacies and interactions of the human condition and specifically of the experience growing up and living as a black individual in a white-dominated and explicitly anti-Black society while at the same time, while at the same time rendering his human characters and their emotions in a simple, straightforward, and immensely accessible fashion. Reading the complexity behind the surface simplicity of his works is at once enjoyable and edifying.

The term identity is defined by Webster’s dictionary as being “the state or fact of remaining the same one or ones, as under varying aspects or conditions” however in exploring the concept of Identity in black literature, we can find no definite explanation or definition. We can try to accept that it has been rooted in social situations that are generally more discriminatory, such the institution of slavery. In some way shape or form, the average or normal African American is confronted with the question of where do I fit in amongst the white society? The problem with African American Identity has many dimensions, such as community, class, and color.

Due to dehumanization and segregation, African Americans grow up with conflicting identities, despite these struggles, Claude McKay and Langston Hughes encourage African Americans to resist oppression by accepting and being proud of their identity through the use of tone. In “If We Must Die”, McKay, writes about how lynching dehumanizes African Americans, but they should not stop fighting against this injustice and only then will they get the recognition they deserve. He writes, “What though before us lies the open grave?/ Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack/ pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!” (McKay). African American have no choice of whether they will live or die, but they can choose to fight until they die. White

Just imagine what life was like in the 1930s as a black man or woman; where the white man and woman have complete control and authority over all. During these times a great black writer tried to convey to his people that there was no such thing as a superior race. Langston Hughes was not an average black man for those times. He was a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance and a pusher for equal rights. Through his many writings Hughes showed his disappointment and disbelief with the behaviors of North and South African-Americans. Mulatto is a compelling, courageous play where the subject of race and identity can be understood a little better through a historical approach. In Mulatto there are many characters. There is the white, plantation

Langston Hughes had a strong belief in writing and sharing what he believed no matter what anyone thought about him. His work during the Harlem Renaissance and his view of the struggles of colored and minorities in the United States influenced his work. In many of his writings, it is clear that Hughes has anger towards this ideal America. He writes in his counterstatement to a fellow African American poet, “An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.” The expectations and idea of being a white privilege American and chasing after the American dream is something that Hughes feels strongly about. He feels that no one should have to change who they are to be something that society accepts. The theme that he carries in his work is clear, the American dream is anyone’s if they pursue it, but the colored people and minorities are incapable of pursuing such a dream because of this society that we are

In today’s society, people have many racial prejudices whether they are displayed to the public or not. Racial tensions were even more prevalent in the twentieth century. Langston Hughes was a poet who really tried to bring attention to the growing racial tensions until his death in the late 60s. Throughout his life, Hughes was influenced by the time he grew up in and by his own family; he wrote to free the black culture and literature from racial pride.

In the early twentieth century, many blacks who lived in the South moved to the North to find a better way of life. Many families landed in Harlem, New York and the neighborhood eventually became rich in Black culture and traditions. The mixture of cultures, heritage and traditions eventually lead to an explosion of Black creativity in music, literature and the arts which became known as the Harlem Renaissance. As with many transitional time periods in United states History, the Harlem Renaissance had its share of success stories. One of the well-known writers of the 1900’S is Langston Hughes. While many writers focused on one style or category of writing, Langston Hughes is the most versatile of all of the writers from the Harlem

In my opinion, in order to respond the racial injustice, Hughes didn’t make an overstatement of his race or depreciate white people, on the contrary, he only wrote realistically and combined with traditional ways, such as Jazz, to emphasize their own culture, with laughs and tears. The racial injustice during that time made Negroes invisible, but Langston Hughes used his works to let Negroes distinct, and even made them in vogue. In his article The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, Hughes had very clear viewpoints that repeated almost in every paragraph, which further reminded audience what he tried to convince is to be proud of who they are. He also mentioned another viewpoint from some Negroes, which was to try to be white as similar

When looking at the origins of African-American Dramas specifically in Mulatto, Native Son, A Raisin in the Sun, Funnyhouse of a Negro, Great Goodness of Life, and Dutchman, the emotions of all these characters created the sense that everyone in this time were still searching for their identity. Each character in the plays had to overcome difficulties relating to their skin color, thus causing either confusion or confidence in their search for what defines them as their self. It created internal conflicts and they often blamed society for specific expectations and stereotypes. How the characters decided to express their feelings in emotions demonstrates a sense of realism and how they viewed themselves. In each play, we are able to see how the characters deal with the searching of their identity through various emotions and internal conflicts through their life choices.

A biracial poet confronts his racial identity in the poem, “The Cross”. One can assume the confusion of skin color, as well as the remorse of a child torn between two worlds, to be the foundation for the poem. The color of one’s skin does not define a person’s purpose, rather it is a statement of their heritage. Langston Hughes uses the elements of denotation and connotation in his poem, “The Cross” to show his difficulty finding his identity.