Langston Hughes's poem "Mulatto"

Langston Hughes's poem "Mulatto" first appeared in his volume of poetry titled Fine Clothes to the Jew, first published in 1927 (Barksdale 4). Fine Clothes was Hughes's second collection of verse; The Weary Blues was his first, and it appeared to generally admiring reviews in the national press and black newspapers and magazines in 1926 (Rampersad xiii). Fine Clothes, however, was less warmly received than The Weary Blues because of the bold depiction of lower-class African-American life in its poems (Rampersad xiii). "Mulatto" was one such poem.

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902, the second son of James Nathaniel Hughes and Carrie Mercer Langston Hughes (Berry 1). Langston was the last child of his parents' marriage. Berry maintains that Langston Hughes' earliest impressions were of Lawrence, Kansas, where his mother took him to live after his father moved out when he was slightly more than a year old (Berry 3). She argues that the frequent moving about from one place to another, the absence of a father, and the presence of poverty and racial discrimination--each in its way--marked him for life but never made him bitter (Berry 3). The Big Sea, for example, offers a genial, moving account of his life from his birth in Joplin before his mother took him to Lawrence (Rampersad xii).

In the absence of a father, Langston Hughes spent his formative years until the age of puberty under matriarchal influence. This

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James Hughes's response to his son that summer in 1919. The poem can also be read as an articulation of the racial conflict in America. In 1968, two black psychiatrists aimed to write a clinical handbook spelling out certain aspects of the psychiatric treatment of blacks (Grier & Cobbs xi). The book sold to an extremely large audience and was the subject of numerous positive critical reviews. The authors discuss the condition of blacks in America following the abolition of slavery and leading up to the 1960s: The culture of slavery was never undone for either master or slave. The civilization that tolerated slavery dropped its slaveholding cloak but the inner feelings remained. The "peculiar institution" continues to exert its evil influence over the nation. The practice of slavery stopped over a hundred years ago, but the minds of our citizens have never been freed (Grier & Cobbs 26). If one keeps the above-quoted passage in mind while reading "Mulatto," one is more likely to notice that, although the poem does not once mention slavery, one tends to assume that the poet is referring to the relationship between master and slave, specifically, the rape of the black woman slave and the denunciation of the male child who

Category: Arts - L