Chapter 2



REVERSING THE MARGINALIZATION OF BLACK BODIES IN LITERATURE IN THE 1920S THROUGH LANGSTON HUGHES’ COLLECTION THE WAYS OF WHITE FOLKS A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of theRequirements of the Renée Crown University Honors Program atSyracuse UniversityAbbigail HenryCandidate for Bachelor of Artsand Renée Crown University HonorsSpring 2020Honors Thesis in English and Textual StudiesThesis Advisor: Susan Edmunds, Professor of EnglishThesis Reader: _______________________ Crystal Bartolovich, Professor of English Honors Director: _______________________ Dr. Danielle Smith, Director AbstractLangston Hughes within his collection The Ways of White Folks depicts different platonic and romantic interracial relationships that occurred during the Harlem Renaissance. Following the United States’ ideologies concerning black primitivism, white Americans used the Harlem Renaissance to explore their fascination with the primitives/African Americans. By analyzing the different relationships between white man-black woman, white woman-black man, white man-black man and white woman-black woman, Hughes shows how white Americans are influenced by America’s racist history and how the discourse of primitivism has evolved from the 16th century into the 19th century. Hughes shows how white Americans during the Harlem Renaissance used racist language in an attempt to demean African Americans. He displays how their focus on fostering and perpetuating ideas of black primitivism, stops them from seeing the autonomy that African Americans have within their relationships. He depicts the irony of the U. S’s history of labeling African Americans as children and savages, when in the 1920s white Americans looked foolish and ridiculous in their pursuit of a fabricated vision of primitivism. In the end, Hughes refocuses the story back to the African American. Using diction, free indirect discourse in combination with dramatic juxtaposition and contrast of opposing points of view, dramatic irony and humor, Hughes re-frames the white framing strategies that white Americans used to attempt to demean and control African Americans, and instead privileges African Americans and returns autonomy back to them.Executive SummaryMy project examines The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes, focusing on the short stories “Slave on the Block,” “Rejuvenation through Joy,” “A Good Job Gone” and “The Blues I’m Playing” arguing that white Americans used an updated discourse of primitivism in their interracial relationships with African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance. Within my project I investigate how Hughes reframes the white framing strategies that white Americans use in their interracial relationships with African Americans. Within his collection, he gives autonomy back to the African American characters within the story, and exposes his white character’s erotic fascination with black bodies using diction, free indirect discourse in combination with dramatic juxtaposition and contrast of opposing points of view, dramatic irony and humor. Additionally, I focus on the different power dynamics in the interracial pairings between white man-black woman, white woman-black man, white man-black man and white woman-black woman, and how the discourse of primitivism has evolved into the 19th century. This project is significant because though Hughes grounds his argument in the Harlem Renaissance, in order to understand the tools that white Americans utilized in an attempt to marginalize African Americans during the 1920s, the reader has to understand the implications of slavery in the United States, and how years later this racist history still has an impact on the relationships between white and black Americans. Hughes uses his work as an analogy of the larger societal issues occurring during the 1920s, specifically, the use of racist language, characterization, and fetishizing of black bodies that occurred during a period that was supposed to celebrate black talent. Hughes depicts how the evolution of the discourse surrounding primitivism only allowed white Americans to mask their racist ideologies about black bodies in an attempt to be closer to African Americans. Hughes’ literature allows African Americans to reclaim the narrative and illuminates the power that they have within these relationships. This literature is important because it acknowledges the typically concealed power dynamics in interracial relationship (platonic or otherwise) and privileges the African American in a world that typically disenfranchises the race. Table of ContentsAbstract……………………………………….……………….…………… IIIExecutive Summary………………………….……………….……………. IVAcknowledgement…………………………………………………………. iiAdvice for further students………………………………………………… iiiChapter 1: Reversing the marginalization of black bodies in literature…… 1Conclusion:………………………………………………………………... 22Works Cited.………………………………………………………………. 23AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Dr. Mayes and the Paris Noir program for allowing me to learn about the diaspora and the history of black bodies in the United States and Paris. Without you all, I would never have discovered my appreciation for the black artists who paved the way for our stories to be told. I would also like to thank the English distinction program for helping me develop my arguments and strengthen my analysis. I would also like to thank Susan Edmunds, not only for being an amazing advisor on my thesis, but for your wisdom, kindness, and strength throughout this year. Without you challenging my arguments, and inspiring me as a student, this paper would never have been written. Lastly, to my friends, thank you for listening to me ramble about the 1920s for a year and half, your patience did not go unnoticed. Advice to Future Honors StudentsDare to tell the stories that are often forgotten.Chapter 1The Harlem Renaissance was a period that placed black art, music, literature, and talent into the spotlight of the 20th century. As black art became popularized, some white Americans brought prejudices, erotic fascinations, and misplaced ideas of ownership to these black spaces. Carol Henderson in Scarring the Black Body argues that “African American literature should be viewed as one vast genealogical poem that attempts to restore continuity to the ruptures or discontinuities imposed by the history of black presence in America. Moreover, this persistence in acquiring a voice through the assertion of writing creates an emancipatory spirit that fuses feeling into action and helps the disempowered see their circumstances differently and act to change them” (Hardin 4). Langston Hughes takes on this task by using his 1934 short story collection The Ways of White Folks as an analogy to illuminate the problematic interracial relationships that developed during this period. Historically, white Americans believed that African Americans were primitives. During the Harlem Renaissance, white Americans used different strategies to either become primitive, exert their erotic obsession with black bodies, or to own black bodies. Black Intellectuals such as Susan Neal Mayberry, critiqued white America’s fascination with the discourse of primitivism that flourished during the Harlem Renaissance. Mayberry, in her article “Out of the mouths of babes: Children and narrative voices in Hughes' The Ways of White Folks” argues that Hughes uses his collection to startle white Americans into an awareness of the political and social implications to the African Americans that they are attempting to marginalize. Furthermore, she argues that Hughes depicts his African Americans as full and independent human beings contrary to the actions of his white characters (49). This analysis of The Ways of White Folks focuses on the literary devices such as reframing, diction, free indirect discourse and humor that Hughes uses to upend his white characters, and privilege his black characters, returning them to the forefront of the story. He uses diction to show the history of racist language in the United States and how it can be used as a tool to demean African Americans. Free indirect discourse, dramatic juxtaposition, and contrast of opposing points of view allows the reader to see both perspectives of the interracial pairings and deduce for themselves who holds the power within these relationships. He utilizes dramatic irony and humor to show how false and misguided white Americans’ ideas of primitivism are. In his stories, Hughes reframes the white framing strategies in these interracial encounters, gives autonomy back to the African American and exposes his white characters’ erotic fascination with black bodies using diction and free indirect discourse, in combination with dramatic juxtaposition, contrast of opposing points of view, dramatic irony, and humor in his collection The Ways of White Folks.The discourse surrounding primitivism has evolved since its origins. Jan Nederveen Pieterse in his book White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture argues that in anthropology, the stages of social evolution are depicted as primitivism-savagery-barbarism-civilization (37). European civilization used this as justification for colonization and imperial management by arguing that because they were of a superior class, it was their duty to elevate and teach those below their rank. The discussion concerning savagery took place during the sixteenth century and was largely focused on Native Americans until “savage” became used as a distinguisher for all non-European groups. By the nineteenth century, savagery became defined by absences, (lack of clothing, attributes of civilization etc.). Africa was introduced into the discourse with the widespread images of Africans with scarce clothing surrounded by vast vegetations, which were argued to symbolize an uncultivated and uninhibited land in need of colonization by Europeans.The discourse evolved to include a new characterization of Africans themselves as primitive. G. W. F Hegel described that “the Negro represents natural man in all his wild and untamed nature. If you want to treat and understand him rightly, you must abstract all elements of respect and morality and sensitivity - there is nothing remotely humanized in the Negro's character” (Pieterse 34). Savagery was coupled with the instinctive in order to dehumanize Africans. Freud, Jung, and post-Freudians furthered this characterization by stating that “primitives were equated with children and the mentally disturbed, in accordance with the idea that early stages of human consciousness were recapitulated during childhood” (Pieterse 36). By equating Africans with children or the mentally disturbed, these psychologists were trying to convey that Africans are foolish and na?ve.? In both characterizations, Africans are deprived of their autonomy for Europeans to proclaim their superiority, and to enslave the people.The characterization of Africans was held in comparison to Europeans to further distinguish between the two groups. The notion of the Wild Man was born out of the idea that savagery was an inner disposition for both civilized and primitive humanity. D.O. Mannoni articulated a distinction between the savages or Africans, and the civilized or Europeans.? He argues that “the savage is identified in the unconscious with a certain image of the instincts. And civilized man is painfully divided between the desire to ‘correct’ the ‘errors’ of the savages and the desire to identify with them in his search for some lost paradise” (Pieterse 38). Africans were argued to be savage and primitive children in need of guidance, whereas Europeans were argued to be civilized and through colonization to bring order to the savages.In the 1920s, primitivism was still used to describe African Americans; however, the focus transformed from correcting African Americans’ behavior to white Americans wanting to become more primitive.? Langston Hughes depicts white Americans’ fascination with the Harlem Renaissance as a way of indulging in their true fascination with the Primitive.? Jazz, which was a large feature of the Harlem Renaissance became commodified and then sold to a white audience during the 1920s.? However, jazz was not appreciated for its eclectic music samplings, but rather for being the epitome of primitivism. David Chinitz in his article “Rejuvenation Through Joy: Langston Hughes, Primitivism and Jazz” states that during the Harlem Renaissance, jazz was argued to “make savages of us all by reawakening even in the most sophisticated audience instincts that are deep-seated in most of us. This argument was a favorite with those who believed that the spread of jazz threatened to destroy western civilization entirely. For those who espoused it, this prediction was borne out in the character of jazz dances with their relatively free movement and indecorous contact between partners” (65). White Americans argued that jazz was a source of primitivism. This shifted their focus from the music and the art to the ideology that jazz was a catalyst for savagery. Similarly, individuals would police African Americans so that they reflected their ideas of primitivism. Ann Douglas in her book Terrible Honesty argues that black New Yorkers were told that they were “the primitive, the savage ‘id’ of Freud’s new psychoanalytic discourse, trailing clouds of barbaric, prehistoric, preliterate ‘folk culture’ wherever you go. It is even worse to be informed, as Jessie Faucet repeatedly was, by blacks as well as whites, that your well-mannered persona is a fake, a cowardly failure to live up to, or down to, your exotic racial inheritance” (98). Hughes foregrounds this dynamic in The Ways of White Folks, where his white characters repeatedly rely on an updated discourse on primitivism in order to police black bodies and attempt to maintain power within their interracial relationships.?The Ways of White Folks demonstrates that the language white Americans used during the Harlem Renaissance was informed by the racist history of the United States, and progressed in order to maintain power within the new relationships that were developing between white and black Americans. Diction can be used as a tool of oppression because of the power it carries in labeling and distinguishing individuals, which is then accepted and perpetuated by others. In the United States, terms such as negro and negress emerged during slavery and were used to demean African Americans. Within the story “Slave on the Block,” Anne and Michael Carraway, a wealthy white couple in New York City, employ Luther, an African American young man, to be their gardener, and Maddie, an African American woman, to be a maid within their household. The Carraways refer to the African Americans that they encounter as their “dark friends,” and refer to Luther as “darkie.” The terms “dark” and “darkie” both hint at a primitive understanding of African Americans, which is entrenched in a history that connotes African American with savagery.? The term “friend” indicates a bond of mutual respect, understanding and affection; however, using the phrase “dark friends” allows the Carraways to capitalize on this relationship, while subtly hinting to the African American that they are “other.”? Using this technique, Langston Hughes shows his readers how important the language of white Americans was in maintaining falsified ideas of African Americans. Hughes critiques white Americans’ understanding of the Harlem Renaissance because it was not an appreciation of what African Americans can do, but a way of continuing false ideas of what African Americans are. When Anne first meets Luther, she remarks that “he is the jungle,” and Michael says that “he’s I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray” (Hughes 20). To the Carraways, Luther as an individual has disappeared, and instead, he has become their own personalized ideas of what blackness is. To Ann, Luther is animalistic, and her ideas of blackness are still rooted in the historical connection of blackness to savagery and primitivism. Contrarily, Michael’s ideas are connected to music, and negro spirituals, both of which were integral to slavery but also evolved during the 1920s Jazz era. Another practice that evolved during the 1920s was white women’s fascination with black male bodies.Nancy Cunard in her book Negro, an Anthropology argues that after World War I there was an increase in the glorification of African-American male virility in literature, and it became fashionable for white women to have sexual relationships with black men. Additionally, “because of the severe penalties attached to the black-man-white-woman relationships in America, the Negro man is more pursued in these affairs” (Cunard 64). White women fetishized black men and allowed their privileges to protect them in their exploration of their fascination.? Hughes uses free indirect discourse in order for the reader to see unfiltered thoughts of his white characters and connect them to the similar ideas that white Americans possessed during the Harlem Renaissance. Using this strategy, Hughes allows the reader to see how Anne advances her fascination with Luther’s body by masking it in their professional relationship. Anne is framed as a typical white woman in the 1920s who eroticizes the black male body, but also how her ideas are rooted in a history of racial oppression within the United States. Hughes brings the reader into Anne’s internal thoughts describing Luther as an “adorable Negro. Not tall, but with a splendid body. And a slow and lively smile that lighted up his black, black face, for his teeth were very white, and his eyes, too… Anne could stare at him at leisure when he was asleep. One day she decided to paint him nude, or at least half nude. A slave picture, that’s what she would do. The market at New Orleans for a background. And call it ‘The Boy on the Block’” (24). Anne focuses on Luther’s “black face” and contrasts it against his white teeth and eyes, showing that her attraction to Luther is tied to his skin color. This stream of consciousness shows how Anne steers her thoughts into rationalizing having Luther naked without accepting the underlying lust that she has for him. Additionally, by specifically portraying Luther as a slave who is naked from the chest up, she can satisfy her desire to be physically close to him and use her time painting to stare and eroticize his body. This illusion allows Anne to maintain the boundaries that privileges her as a white woman and disfranchises Luther as a black man, while continuing this fantasy in her head.? By using free indirect discourse, Hughes can depict these ideas to his readers while still holding Anne accountable to her thoughts. Anne hypersexualizes Luther even as she pretends to herself that she is not because of the history of blackness in America and the taboos attached to the black male body.The United States has a history of labeling African Americans as children in order to justify the enslavement and mistreatment of the race. White Americans pursuing interracial relationships within the Harlem Renaissance rendered African Americans as children in order to lessen the autonomy of African Americans. Anne Douglas in Terrible Honesty argues that white Americans “cast blacks in the Oedipal family romance of America itself, collaborating and contending white masters and white mistress [as] the Negro’s self-appointed and powerful parents (266). Additionally, Mia Bay in The White Image in the Black Mind?: African-American Ideas About White People argues, “White social Darwinists persist in holding [African Americans] up to this country [as the] abnormal baby which never grows, which never can grow, and which the American people must nurse for all time” (7). Labeling an individual as a child creates a power imbalance between the two individuals. In these instances, the white American by assuming the role of the parent, has created a subordinate role for the African American. Langston Hughes uses free indirect discourse to show how the Carraway’s perception of Luther is different from reality. Hughes shows how Luther does not play into these stereotypes and fantasies projected by his white characters, and instead allows Luther to use their belief in these lies to his advantage. When Luther arrives to pick up his late uncle’s belongings, he asks the Carraways, “You don’t know where I could get a job, do you? Said the boy. This took Michael and Anne back a bit, but they rallied at once. So charming and naive to ask right away for what he wanted” (Hughes 21). Although Luther is in his early twenties, the Carraway’s refer to him as “boy” and “charming and naive” because Luther is African American. Hughes allows Luther to push past the Carraway’s belittling characterization of him, and instead capitalize on it and get a job.?During the Harlem Renaissance, a historically specific gender dynamic led white women to treat black men as children because of the subservient roles that they play regarding white men. White women during the 1900s were fighting for the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was passed. Power dynamics in the 1920s placed white women below white men in the power structure because of their gender, but above black men because of their race. Anne Douglas’s analysis of the 1920s depicted that “oppression breeds in the oppressed the desire to oppress others and blacks provided just the scapegoat that middle class women needed. Like their male peers if for slightly different reasons, white women had a vested interest in seeing Negroes as children never expected to grow up” (266). Even after being granted the right to vote, white women were confined to patriarchal gender roles, and were not treated as equally as white men. White women were content to yield power over black men and see them as children, because they gained power in that dynamic.Langton Hughes uses dramatic irony in The Ways of White Folks to show the problematic nature of this gendered interracial relationships during the Harlem Renaissance. Specifically, he depicts how Luther does not conform to Anne’s ideas about him and instead rebels against them.? Hughes reframes Anne’s own acts of framing Luther as a child to show the power that Black people have in these relationships. In the mornings, when Anne would paint Luther, he dozed off “almost as soon as she sat him down to pose, so she eventually decided to paint Luther asleep. ‘The Sleeping Negro’, she would call it. Dear, natural childlike people, they would sleep anywhere they wanted to” (23). Hughes narrates this scene from Anne’s first-person perspective to show the reader how Anne’s characterization of Luther allows her to feel a sense of power over him. Hughes has already informed the reader that Luther is asleep because he was partying with Mattie the night before, and his falling asleep is not due to his innocence but instead his adult decision to enjoy a night out with friends. Though Anne believes that she holds the power in this scene and in their relationship, this is false. Hughes shows the readers that Anne’s fantasies are separate from reality, and though Luther’s job is to pose for Anne, he claims his autonomy by not playing into her ideas of him as a child. Hughes instead uses this device to re-center Luther back to the forefront of the story and returns power back to him.??White Americans during the Harlem Renaissance rendered African Americans as children because of the history of the demeaning term as well as the power dynamics embedded in the characterization. However, white Americans also envied African Americans because by labeling them as children and primitives, they argued that African Americans were able to have a joy and freeness that civilized people, like white Americans, could not possess.?During the Harlem Renaissance, the fascination with the primitive was concocted out of the idea that African Americans were closer to nature and the natural world. Their lack of civilization, a theory hailing from slavery, was argued to be an asset that white Americans could benefit from during the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution brought new changes to their everyday life and white Americans began seeking an escape from their mundane routines. The Harlem Renaissance provided that escape by bringing them to African Americans and “the natural world.” Carla Kaplan and Liisa Ivary argues in Miss Anne In Harlem: The White Women of The Black Renaissance? argues that white culture in the 1920s was seen as “dull, depleted, restricted, cold, without vibrancy or creativity, and that all the passion, purity, and pleasure it lacked was hidden away in black communities” (730). White Americans actively sought out this vibrancy in Harlem with African Americans. “Langston Hughes’s ‘Rejuvenation Through Joy’: Passing, Racial Performance, and the Marketplace” by Sonnet Retman furthers this argument stating that during the age of the assembly line and the Harlem Renaissance, race was commodified with an emphasis on primitivism for mass consumption (593). Hughes uses his story “Rejuvenation Through Joy” to depict white Americans actively seeking to consume primitivism.The short story “Rejuvenation through Joy” hints at an older 19th century understanding of primitivism, while also depicting the modern ideas that evolved primitivism in the 1920s. Langston Hughes uses the colony within “Rejuvenation through Joy” and its means of operations to represent a material manifestation of an updated discourse of primitivism during the Harlem Renaissance. In “Rejuvenation through Joy” the main character, Lesche is perceived to be a white man who creates a colony for white Americans to learn how to be natural and pure like African Americans. Toni Morrison in “Playing in the Dark” argues that slavery has allowed America to use the black body as an object at their disposal. Morrison also argues that “black slavery enriched the country’s creative possibilities. For in that construction of blackness and enslavement could be found not only the not-free but also, with the dramatic polarity created by skin color, the projection of the not-me. The result was a playground for the imagination. What rose up out of collective needs to allay internal fears and to rationalize external exploitation was an American Africanism-a fabricated brew of darkness, otherness, alarm and desire that is uniquely American” (38). In Lesche, Hughes creates a character who recognizes and decides to exploit white people’s readiness to project this “fabricated brew” onto African Americans. Lesche and those he employs combine both “the primitive” and modern philosophical literature to educate the colony out of their money. In “Rejuvenation through Joy”, the Yale man created sermons for the colony from a combination of “black” and modern books. While “surrounded by books on primitive art, spiritual guidance, Negro jazz, German eurythmics, psychoanalysis, Yogi philosophy, all of Krishnamurti, half of Havelock Ellis, and most of Freud, besides piles of spirituals, jazz records, Paul Robeson, and Ethel Waters, and in the midst of all this-a typewriter. There sat the Yale man creating lectures-preparing, for a month in advance, twenty-minute daily talks for the great Lesche” (Hughes 83). By connecting these different pieces of literature and culture, Hughes shows how the Yale man is constructing what primitivism will mean to the white audience in the colony. The inclusion of the books on primitive art and piles of spirituals hints to the historical understanding of primitivism; however, coupling this material with German eurythmics and psychoanalysis etc. brings a new perspective and transforms these ideas of primitivism.?Similarly, Hughes uses the literal furniture styles within the colony to represent the development of new stage props and a new look to primitivism in the 1920s. Hughes’ diction works within the framework of what primitivism is perceived to be, detailing that “instead of chairs, they brought African stools, low, narrow and backless.” The inclusion of these African stools instead of chairs demonstrates a return back to the uncivilized, however, Sol describes that he found a decorator for the stools “to do it over primitive-modernistic-on a percentage of the profits, if there are any” (Hughes 74). Thus, the stools will no longer be “primitive” or “modernistic” but encompass both aspects. Hughes calls attention to the precise furniture styles used within the colony to show how consciously fabricated these ideas of primitivism are, and how they become commodified and presented to a white audience. Hughes establishes that the furniture and lectures are all props in the manufacturing of primitivism, and then shows how these constructed ideas make white people look foolish.?Using humor as a literary device, Hughes shows the audience how foolish white Americans acted in their pursuit of primitivism. In one scene during the story, when Lesche told those within the colony to lift their hands up, “A thousand pairs of female arms and some few hundred men’s, were lifted up with great rustle and movement, then and there, toward the sun. They were really lifted toward Lesche, because nobody knew quite where the sun was in the crowded ballroom-besides all eyes were on Lesche '' (Hughes 70). This scene is humorous because the participants are trying to replicate the supposed actions of African Americans to find joy. Hughes is ridiculing these characters to the readers because they are so focused on the idea of primitivism, that they are willing to do anything, including looking foolish, in order to gain it.? Lesche continues his point by getting everyone to sway with him. He argues that “the trees point toward the sun, but they also sway in the wind, joyous in the wind...keep your hands skyward…Sway! Everyone sway! To the left, to the right, like trees in the wind, sway!” (Hughes 70).? Ironically, these white characters do not realize that in their pursuit for primitivism, they are giving up their autonomy to Lesche. Additionally, their actions do not make them look free or liberated, and instead they look like children dressed in costumes following an authority figure.In “Rejuvenation through Joy”, Hughes uses humor and ridicule to depict how the white character’s actions lead to the downfall of the colony. Lesche constructs primitivism for his followers and then teaches them how to be African American through music and lectures. The colony was constructed to have the white characters discover their repressed primitive selves and to get closer to nature as African Americans were thought to be. However, Hughes constructs the ending to show how childish the white characters are, and he focuses on how white women shred their respectability within the colony in hopes of being primitive.? After an altercation in the colony, a white woman picks up a gun and attempts to shoot Lesche. She states, “‘How right to shoot the one you love!’ She cried, ‘How primitive, how just!’ And she pointed the gun directly at their dear leader. Again, shots rang out...but by that time, Baroness Langstrund had thrown herself on Duveen Althouse. ‘Aw-oo!’ she screamed. ‘You wretch, shooting the man I love.’? Her fingers sought the other’s hair, her nails tore at her eyes. Meanwhile, Mrs. Carlos Gleed threw an African Stool” (Hughes 96). These women are attributing their actions to the return to primitivism called for in the teachings of the colony. However, Hughes shows the reader throughout the story that these ideas of primitivism were fabricated and thus these women were acting on their own impulses. Additionally, at the end of the story, Hughes hints to the reader that Lesche is an African American man. Following this rationale, not only were white women willingly discarding white cultures respectability politics, they were ironically giving their power over to a black man.Though some white Americans attempted to replicate their ideas of how African Americans lived by becoming more primitive, other white Americans during the Harlem Renaissance were content with the boundaries that separate white from black Americans and instead wanted to use their privileges to have a closer proximity to blackness.The history of institutional racism in the United States has created enduring wealth disparities between white and black Americans. In “Optic White: Blackness and the Production of Whiteness” Harryette Mullen details that the economic system of masters and slaves in the United States’ history, placed white men in control of black labor. Additionally, during slavery, black women were labeled as “other” and seen as property to breed more slaves for white men, and for him to inflict his aggressive sexual desires onto her body (Harryette 73).? Furthermore, Linde Riphagen in “Marginalization of African Americans in the Social Sphere of U.S. Society” argues these economic systems continue to keep African Americans poor and under the employment of white Americans (99). These ideologies continued into the 1920s and influenced the relationships between white employers and black men, as well as white men and black women. Hughes shows how white characters within these interracial relationships force their gendered fantasies onto African American bodies, but how African Americans refuse to submit. Langston Hughes’ “A Good Job Gone” describes the story of Mr. Lloyd, a wealthy white man, and his African American helper. In? “A Good Job Gone” Langston Hughes uses dramatic juxtaposition and contrast of opposing points of view to present white characters’ inaccurate perception that they have ownership over black bodies and reframes the scene to show that the black characters are actually the ones in power. The black helper within the story describes an occurrence when some guests of Mr. Lloyd tried to call him rude names. He states, “they didn’t know how to treat a servant. One of ‘em used to nigger and darkie me around, till I got her told right quietly one time, and Mr. Lloyd backed me up. The boss said, ‘This is no ordinary boy, Lucille. True, he’s my servant, but I’ve got him in Columbia studying to be a dentist, and he’s just as white inside as he is black’” (59). By using dramatic juxtaposition and contrast of opposing points of view, the reader is able to see how the white guests’ belief that they have power over the servant is ill-informed, and Hughes displays how the servant actually has more authority in this instance than they did, due to his employer’s desire to treat him as a protégé of sorts. These interactions were framed in keeping with the way that white benefactors acted towards black artists in the Harlem Renaissance. Mr. Lloyd's position as a benefactor, however, also turns out to be mistaken because he believes that his generosity gives him ownership rights over his helper. His statement “I have got him in Columbia studying to be a dentist” shows possession over the black helper. The black helper came to Mr. Lloyd as someone who is in college, and then by working for Mr. Lloyd and earning a paycheck, he was able to afford to go to Columbia. Beyond his financial support, Mr. Lloyd had no influence on his helper’s enrollment in Columbia. By juxtaposing these two perspectives, Hughes clarifies how these interracial relationships are not always as they seem. While Mr. Lloyd deludes himself from his reality, the black helper can use Mr. Lloyd’s?money to advance his own interests and needs.Using humor and dramatic irony, Hughes shows the delusory nature of Mr. Lloyd’s fantasy of Pauline, a black woman, and his inaccurate belief that he owns her. Mr. Lloyd’s relationship with Pauline is rooted in a racist history of white men having black mistresses or concubines. Hughes re-frames Pauline’s position as an African American woman within the story. She understands that she has to play into Mr. Lloyd ideas of “owning her '' as a black woman and him thinking that she is less than in order to benefit from the relationship. She tells the black helper, “You’ve got to kid white folks along…when you’re depending on ‘em for a living, make ‘em think you like it” (62). Hughes frames Pauline playing into Mr. Lloyd fantasies of her, but she does not succumb to them.? After Pauline and Mr. Lloyd have an altercation, she calls him a “A white bastard!..Just because they pay you, they always think they own you. No white man’s gonna own me. I laugh with em’ and they think I like ‘em. Hell, I’m from Arkansas where the crackers lynch niggers in the street. How could I like em?” (Hughes 65).? Hughes crafts this sentence to show the power imbalance between white men and black women, and how America’s history has played a role in how white men’s paid sexual relationship with black women is set up. Additionally, this scene is humorous because the reader is able to see Pauline’s real feelings about Mr. Lloyd, and how his attempts to buy her love are futile and misguided. Furthermore, Hughes is intentional in giving Pauline her autonomy within the story. She still has a lover within the story, and it is Mr. Lloyd that chases after her. Mr. Lloyd's fantasies are dependent upon the idea that he has possession over Pauline. After hitting Pauline, he attempts to call her “child” in order to regain ownership over her and re-affirm his power. He says, “My God, Pauline, I love you!.. I want you, child. Don’t mind what I’ve done. Stay here with me. Stay, stay, stay” (64). Hughes frames this wealthy white man ironically begging an African American woman to stay with him, upending the idea that Mr. Lloyd is the one in power. Pauline leaves Mr. Lloyd and tells him to keep his money in the end.??In his short story “The Blues I’m Playing”, Langston Hughes depicts the relationship between Mrs. Ellsworth, a wealthy white patron, and Oceola Jones, an African American pianist, as they develop a supposed mentor/mentee relationship during the 1920s.? Within the story, Hughes depicts the ways that Mrs. Ellsworth tries to have ownership over Oceola’s music and her body by disguising it as concern for the development of her art. Hughes reframes Mrs. Ellsworth tactics by using dramatic irony and free indirect discourse in combination with dramatic juxtaposition and contrast of opposing points of view, to allow the reader to see Oceola’s authority within the situation and how she does not succumb to Mrs. Ellsworth ideas.? Hughes begins by using dramatic irony to allow the reader to see that Mrs. Ellsworth is deluded in her appreciation of the arts. We see this in the following passage with Hughes’ description of Mrs. Ellsworth’s habits for choosing a protégé.?She was very rich, and it gave her pleasure to share her richness with beauty. Except that she was sometimes confused as to where beauty lay-in the youngsters or in what they made, in the creators or in the creation. Mrs. Ellsworth had been known to help charming young people who wrote terrible poems, blue-eyed young men who painted awful pictures. And she once turned down a garlic-smelling soprano-singing girl who, a few years later, had all the critics in New York at her feet. The girl was so sallow. And she really needed a bath, or at least a mouthwash, on the day when Mrs. Ellsworth went to hear her sing at an East Side settlement house. (99)??It is the individual’s appearance that determines whether Mrs. Ellsworth works with them rather than their talents. Furthermore, based on her history Mrs. Ellsworth cannot discern or improve talent herself, and thus her tactics “for improving” her protégés are concentrated on her obsession with their beauty and maintaining her proximity to them.Hughes then bridges the gap between Mrs. Ellsworth’s fascination with her protégés and her new relationship with Oceola. Mrs. Ellsworth develops a fantasy of controlling Oceola, but in order to do so, she must take Oceola away from the things that give her autonomy and diverge from Mrs. Ellsworth’s ideas of art. Hughes uses free indirect discourse to show the reader how Mrs. Ellsworth disguises her fascination as a necessity for developing Oceola into a proper musician. Mrs. Ellsworth was disturbed that Oceola would play for Harlem house parties,? “was it with keeping with genius, she wondered, for Oceola to have a studio full of white and colored people every Sunday night (some of them actually drinking gin from bottles) and dancing to the most tomtom-like music she had ever heard coming out of a grand piano? She wished she could lift Oceola up bodily and take her away from all that, for art’s sake” (Hughes 110).? Hughes is emphasizing the delusion Mrs. Ellsworth has concerning controlling Oceola and her talents. Furthermore, he shows her lack of knowledge, prejudices, and disdain for African American music though she is mentoring an African American student.Mrs. Ellsworth attempts to indulge her fascination with Oceola’s body through the excuse of helping Oceola connect with the outdoors and separating her from jazz.? Mrs. Ellsworth would organize weekend trips in the mountains for Oceola where she disconnected her from Harlem and was able to manipulate and control her access to Oceola’s body. For instance:If there were a lot of guests at the lodge, as there sometimes were, Mrs. Ellsworth might share a bed with Oceola. Then she would read aloud Tennyson or Browning before turning out the light, aware all the time of the electric strength of that brown-black body beside her and of the deep drowsy voice asking what the poems were about…At such time the elderly white women was glad her late husband’s money…furnished her with a large surplus to devote to the needs of her protegees, especially to Oceola, the blackest-and most interesting of all. (111)The phrases “the electric strength of that brown-black body” and “the deep drowsy voice” hone in on Mrs. Ellsworth’s attraction to Oceola. Furthermore, Hughes’ use of free indirect discourse as a literary strategy accentuates the focus on Oceola’s body rather than her talent as an artist. Mrs. Ellsworth is a wealthy white woman. If she wanted separate rooms for her and Oceola especially considering the racial politics in the 1920s, she could have them. Instead she manipulates her circumstances so that she and Oceola are consistently sharing a bed.?Additionally, Hughes uses dramatic juxtaposition and contrast of opposing points of view in order to allow the reader an insight into Oceola’s perspective to show the autonomy that she has within the story, contrary to Mrs. Ellsworth assumptions of her power. Mrs. Ellsworth sees herself as the authority within her relationship with Oceola, however, Hughes shows the reader the power that Oceola has. Mrs. Ellsworth had to wait to be introduced to Oceola, because Oceola prioritize her own obligations first. As we see in the following passage:By the hardest, an appointment was made for her to come to East 63rd street and play for Mrs. Ellsworth. Oceola has said she was busy every day. It seemed that she had pupils, rehearsed a church choir, and played almost nightly for colored house parties or dances. She made quite a good deal of money. She wasn’t tremendously interested, it seemed, in going way downtown to play for some elderly lady she had never heard of, even if the request did come from the white critic, Ormond Hunter, via the pastor of the church whose choir she rehearsed, and to which Mr. Hunter’s maid belonged. (111)Mrs. Ellsworth’s inner thoughts characterized herself as a savior of art, however, Oceola’s language stating that she was not interested in “going way downtown to play for some elderly lady she had never heard of'” allows the reader to re-characterize Mrs. Ellsworth. Her value is not reliant upon herself and what she brings to the world, but on the artist that she mentors. Thus, by using dramatic juxtaposition, Hughes is attempting to show his reader that Oceola is the one within the relationship that holds the power.Hughes advances his use of dramatic juxtaposition and contrast of opposing points of view by showing the reader how Mrs. Ellsworth’s delusions contradict with Oceola’s reality. One tactic that Mrs. Ellsworth uses in an attempt to curtail Oceola’s love of jazz is by funding trips to Paris for Oceola and exposing her to hours of classical music. However, though Oceola “enjoyed [the] concert[s], [she] seldom felt, like her patron, that she was floating on clouds of bliss. Mrs. Ellsworth insisted, however, that Oceola’s spirit was too moved for words at such times-therefore she understood why the dear child kept quiet” (114). Mrs. Ellsworth reverts to the historical belief that African Americans are children, and maintains that she is an expert on art. However, by allowing the readers to see Oceola’s thoughts, Hughes shows the readers how Oceola comes out ahead of Mrs. Ellsworth in this relationship. Mrs. Ellsworth is the only one entrenched in her delusions while Oceola maintains her core beliefs and benefits from Mrs. Ellsworth’s money.Throughout “The Blues I’m Playing”, Hughes depicts the ways that Mrs. Ellsworth attempts to control Oceola by separating her from Harlem and jazz. In the end, because Oceola does not assimilate to Mrs. Ellsworth’s ideas, their relationship ends and Oceola walks away from Mrs. Ellsworth and her money. In their final meeting, Hughes uses dramatic juxtaposition and contrast of opposing points of view to show how the dominant U.S. ideologies surrounding blackness and whiteness are contrary to their real meaning. Hughes challenges Mrs. Ellsworth’s belief that she has ownership over the creator and the creation, and depicts how in these interracial relationships whenever the African American does not consent to be controlled, the White American reverts to the historical discourse surrounding blackness and whiteness in a deluded attempt at self-consolation. For instance,Mrs. Ellsworth had on a gown of black velvet, and a collar of pearls about her neck. She was very kind and gentle to Oceola, as one would be a child who has done a great wrong but doesn’t know any better. But to the black girl from Harlem, she looked very cold and white, and her grand piano seemed like the biggest and heaviest in the world. (121)Mrs. Ellsworth, in her gown and pearls, attempts to emphasize the difference in status and privilege between her and Oceola by symbolizing herself as a wealthy white woman in opposition to Oceola, a young poor African American woman. However, Mrs. Ellsworth has once again deluded herself into thinking that to Oceola these identities give her power over her. Additionally, Mrs. Ellsworth attempts to characterize Oceola as a child, however, her tactics themselves are childish. Furthermore, Oceola can see through the mirage and recognize her own power. Additionally, Hughes uses dramatic juxtaposition to challenge Mrs., Ellsworth’s deluded sense of ownership over the creation. We see this in the following passage,The girl at the piano heard the white woman saying, is this what I spend thousands of dollars to teach you? No, said Oceola simply. This is mine…Listen!..How sad and gay it is. Blue and happy-laughing and crying… how white like you and black like me…how much like a man… And how like a women…warm as Pete’s mouth.. these are blues... I’m playing. (122)In the end, it is Oceola who gently and firmly asserts ownership over her music. Hughes also displays that the artistic and cultural creations emerging from Anglo-European and African diasporic traditions do not always have to be held in contrast to each other. In the music and in the arts, the prejudices fall away, and they can both freely exist.?White Americans during the Harlem Renaissance entered progressive black cultural spaces and brought with them racist language, ideologies, and an erotic fascination of the black body. The 19th century definition of savage and primitive transformed from a focus on nature and portraying African Americans as children in need of being colonized by Europeans, to the 1920s discourse where white people developed a? fascination with becoming primitive and being in close proximity with African Americans. Kate Baldwin in “Beyond The Color Line and the Iron Curtain: Reading Encounters Between Black and Red” argued that Langston Hughes’ collection is a presentation on how the black experience is impacted by the historically, systemic, contingent patterns of oppression and the ways in which African Americans internalize these patterns to create subjectivities (136). Hughes’ collection depicts the interracial relationships present during the 1920s and upends them by placing African Americans back to the forefront of the story. Langston Hughes uses the Carraways in his short story, “Slave on the Block” to illustrate how the language of white Americans during this time was masquerading as friendly but was just another tool to disenfranchise African Americans. Hughes uses free indirect discourse to reveal the problematic interracial relationships of black men with white women within the 1920s. Anne is representative of a? typical white woman who, enticed by the taboos surrounding the black male body, hides her fascination with Luther’s body in gimmicks such as painting his body. Luther capitalizes on the racial prejudices harbored by the Carraways and in the end leaves their employment displaying his own autonomy. In “Rejuvenation through Joy” Hughes frames the lectures and furniture as stage props to reflect the evolution of primitivism in the modern era, while allowing the white characters to act like children and give up their autonomy to Lesche (who is later rumored to be a black man). This once again emphasizes the gender relationship between black men and white women and gives power back to black men.? “A Good Job Gone” displays the erotic fascination that white men have with black women, and how they use their money and power to attempt to control these women. In the end however, it is the African American woman who leaves the white man begging for her to stay.? “The Blues I’m Playing” depicts the relationship of a white woman benefactor whose erotic fascination with her African American female protégé is cut short when her protégé asserts her autonomy over her music and her art. Langston Hughes’ uses his collection The Ways of White Folks to represent the interracial relationships that developed during the 1920s, and refocuses the narrative back to the African Americans within the collection.??Works CitedBaldwin, Kate. Beyond The Color Line And The Iron Curtain. Duke University Press Books, 2009, pp. 108-140.Bay, Mia. The White Image in the Black Mind?: African-American Ideas About White People, 1830-1925. Oxford University Press, 2000.Chinitz, David. “Rejuvenation through Joy: Langston Hughes, Primitivism, and Jazz.” American Literary History, vol. 9, no. 1, 1997, pp. 60–78. JSTOR, stable/490095.Cunard, N., & Ford, H. (2002). Negro, an anthology (pp. 47-66). New York: Continuum.Douglas, Ann. Terrible Honesty. Papermac, 1997, pp. 1-200.Hardin, Michael, and Carol E. Henderson. "Scarring The Black Body: Race And Representation In African American Literature". The Journal Of The Midwest Modern Language Association, vol 36, no. 2, 2003, p. 69. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/1315310.Henderson, Carol E. Scarring the Black Body?: Race and Representation in African American Literature. University of Missouri Press, 2002.Hughes, Langston. The Ways of White Folks. Vintage Books, 1990.Kaplan, Carla, and Liisa Ivary. Miss Anne In Harlem:The White Women Of The Black Renaissance. Harper, 2013, pp. 1-200.Mayberry, S. N. (1995). Out of the mouths of babes: Children and narrative voices in Hughes' the ways of white folks. Griot, 14(2), 48. Retrieved from , Toni. Playing In The Dark. Vintage Books, 1993, pp. 1-92.Mullen, H.Diacritics Vol. 24, Iss. 2-3,? (1994): 71-89.?Pieterse, Jan Nederveen. White on black: Images of Africa and blacks in western popular culture. Yale University Press, 1992.Retman, S. (2012). Langston Hughes’ “Rejuvenation Through Joy”: Passing, Racial Performance, and the Marketplace. African American Review, 45(4), pp.593-602.Riphagen, Linde. "Marginalization Of African-Americans In The Social Sphere Of US Society". IJIS, vol 5, 2019, pp. 96-119., Accessed 7 Oct 2019. ................
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