LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:9 September 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Racial Discrimination and Identity Crisis:
Black Americans in Select Poems of Langston Hughes

Vinisha B V., M.A. Candidate

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyze claustrophobic and conflict-filled life of Black Americans whose culture, identity and existence are constantly questioned and suppressed by mainstream whites. The agenda of this paper is to find and identify the exceptional talent of Langston Hughes (1902-1967) making his literary form as the most powerful tool to represent voice of the voiceless. The theme of the following poems Theme for English ‘B’, As I Grew Older, and The Negro Speaks of Rivers are taken for study in this article.

Keywords: Poems of Langston Hughes, Colored men, Racial politics, Dignity, Assimilation, Identity, Existential crisis

The United states of America is a country which is rich with different innate cultures, heritage, and traditions. As always America’s diversity is glorified by its literature. General and American ethnic writings are appreciated. It is the literature which helped America to establish itself by constantly questioning and healing it. The role of American ethnic writing in all these is undeniable. American ethnic literature took its birth in the preceding years of Civil War through the publication of novels, poems, histories and autobiographies of newborn writers who belonged America’s ethnic and racial minorities. Such writings revealed American rich heritage. As the ethnic writings constitute a major path in the legacy of literature, writings from racial minorities of America powerfully demonstrate their plights as they are living in a white dominated society.

Racism is a concept which took its birth magnifying the differences between people of European origin and African descent whose ancestors had been involuntarily transported to America with a tag of ‘slave’. Racism turned in to a form of oppression by one race against another. Only because of being colored African Americans were compelled to give up their human dignity and identity. Black Americans faced a lot of restrictions politically, socially, and economically, which were completely against the concept of freedom. Even the racial politics remained as a major phenomenon in socio-economic equality. As the racial stratification continued to occur in all fields like house, education, employment and government, writers like Tony Morrison, Zora Neale, Langston Hughes, and Alice Walker started to rise their voice in order to represent the voiceless by linking the past and the present to inform the future generation using their literary forms as the most powerful weapons.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Vinisha B V., M.A. Candidate
Department of English
Yuvakshetra College
Palakkad, Kerala
vijishabv@gmail.com
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