levels at which the poem operates. This paper attempts to reveal those many levels by discussing the poem in four ways. First, the poem will be considered as an exploration of Hughes's own relationship with his family, particularly his father. Second, it will be considered as a signifier of the relationship between the races in a nominally democratic America. Third, which is somewhat an extension of the second discussion, it will be explored as a verbalized site of the racial contestation in America, particularly in the South. And fourth, it will be considered as an analogy of the physical and mental rape of black men and women in America.
In the summer of 1919, Hughes (at 17) saw his father for the first time in 12 years (Rampersad 181). In 1903, James Hughes had gone to Mexico, where he would become a prosperous property owner. In a lonely, impoverished, passed-around childhood in the Midwest, Langston had fantasized about the man:
a kind of strong, bronze cowboy, in a big Mexican hat, going back and forth from his business in th
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