Comparison between August Wilson and Langston Hughes - Essay Example

Comparison between August Wilson and Langston Hughes In African-American Literature, runs a repetitive theme - the identity of the mulatto in relation to an environment of rejection. Such literature tends to treat this rejection as an ongoing social phenomenon. Langston Hughes and August Wilson, the two most celebrated African-American writers contributed immensely to enrich their literature. While their works can be scathing criticism of racism and often tend to dwell upon the repercussions of past traumatic racial incidents, their works also celebrate the joy of music, food, stories, humor, and love. Many critics consider the faithful representation of Black vernacular speech as emblematic of Hughes' writing. One of his most anthologized poems, The Negro speaks of Rivers has been acclaimed for his passionate acceptance of his race and his reclaiming of black origins. Before Hughes wrote, many African-American artists avoided portraying lower-class black life because they believed such images fed racist stereotypes and attitudes. Hughes was of the opinion that authentic portraits of actual people would counter negative caricatures of African Americans more effectively and so wrote about, and for the common man. Hughes claimed that ninety percent of his work attempted "to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America." Hughes portrays the nobility of common people and the vitality of his African American culture in Thank You, M'am. Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, whose name ironically recognizes both the slavery codes of the founders of the United States and the dignity of the common person, gives spiritual and physical gifts to the young Roger. Finally, she gives him the greatest gift of all: the right to direct his own life. In the mid-1980's, African American drama began de-emphasizing the revolutionary aspects of the political platform, searching instead for a strong dramatic voice to tell the story of African American assimilation into mainstream American ideals. That voice was found in the work of August Wilson, whose series of plays, each based on a decade in the history of African American family life, focus on separation, migration, and reunion to depict the physical and psychological journeys of African Americans in the twentieth century. Wilson's plays offer the whites a new perspective into the lives of black Americans. In "Fences they see a garbageman, a person they really don't look at, although they may see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy's life, white people find out that the content of this black garbageman's life is very similar to their own, that he is affected by the same things-love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much a part of his life as of theirs can be revolutionary and can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives." This is indeed a very radical and a multidimensional portrayal of the African Americans and not merely a walled perception of the blacks. Wilson's dramatic writing, unlike his public pronouncements, is never strident, never overtly political. Even Langston Hughes depicted black families and social setups in Soul Gone Home and Mother and Child without indirectly referring to any political ideology or an apparent social protest. In Southern Gentlemen and Negroes Hughes not only indicted southern injustice but reprimanded African Americans for their inertness. Therefore, it becomes imperative that one reassess Hughes's works in a new light, so as to find a niche in changing times. The tendency to dismiss Hughes as a quintessential Harlem Renaissance poet must be avoided. The main focus of Wilson's work is to look at black culture as it undergoes change and grows in evolving historical contexts. In The Piano Lesson, the piano must be read as a metonym, if not for race itself, then for the racialized plight of African Americans within the context of their history of struggle and survival in the United States. Like race, the piano is at once meaningless and totally meaningful, depending on one's perceptions and perspective. At different points within the text, Berniece and Boy Willie each denigrate and devalue the worth of the piano as part of their persuasive strategies. Berniece bemoans the fact that her mother endured the loss of her husband and seventeen years of loneliness all for "A piece of wood" (Piano Lesson) A sense of displacement can be sensed in the works of both Hughes and Wilson. In his poem, Afro-American Fragment, Langston Hughes describes the significance of an individual's "song" and, in turn, the African American's collective sense of displacement-a fragmented sense of self and of community within a culture: "So Long, So far away, Is Africa. Not even the memories alive Save those that history books create, Save those that songs Beat back out of blood with words sad sung In strange un-Negro tongue- So long, So far away Is Africa. Subdued and time-lost are the drums- And yet, through some vast mist of race There comes this song I do not understand The song of atavistic land, Of bitter yearnings lost, without a place- So long, So far away Is Africa's Dark face." Similarly, in Wilson's play, an acute displacement, which is actually the African American's disenfranchisement in white America, is reflected in each character's desire to participate in the synergistic dance called the juba-a dance of cultural mutability in America and of traditional immutability in their "atavistic land." The central characters are in search of their voice, a "song" which will enable them to articulate their individual and cultural identities, a song that, perhaps, will lead them down the "right road" and not down the behavioral road to aversion, a song that signifies these feelings of displacement, which are referred to as 'Joe Turner'. The widespread critical attention August Wilson's and Langston Hughes's work have enjoyed has helped establish their stature as African American writers of the late twentieth century. Their works often centered upon the daily lives of African Americans and they employed black working class vernacular drawn from African-American musical traditions (mainly blues). Both of them strove to speak to, as well as for, the black masses while still making a living from their writing, which meant attracting white audiences, as well. However, although August Wilson's plays are certainly informed by his experiences as a black person in America, one cannot find him among his characters, none of whom acts as his mouthpiece nor even resembles him in experience or point of view. His characters, male and female, seem remarkably autonomous, fulfilling no one's agenda but their own, demanding to be taken seriously as individuals, not as exemplars. On the other hand, in The Big Sea, Hughes's autobiography, we don't see him withdrawing or refusing to judge. In fact he makes a statement when he says, "The 'better class' Washington colored people were on the whole as unbearable and snobbish a group of people as I have ever come in contact" Despite the few differences between them, both of them can be hailed as pre-eminent writers of the African-American experience. Works Cited Kennedy, X. J. (Author), Gioia, Dana (Author). Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Pearson Longman, 2008. Miller, Baxter, R. The art and imagination of Langston Hughes. University Press of Kentucky, 1989 Bryer, Jackson, R., Hartig, Mary, C. Conversations with August Wilson. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2006 Read More