Mulatto: A Play of the Deep South
(1930)
by Langston Hughes
Part II of II
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“The Criteria for Negro Art” (1926)
The Negro artist has a special relationship to freedom that binds him to truth, justice, and their
synthesis in the Beautiful. Thus his art, in seeking beauty, will always be propaganda and
propaganda is the function of Negro Art (it must be so to fight other forms of propaganda that
prove destructive to the black community).
“The apostle of beauty thus becomes the apostle of truth and right not by choice but by inner and
outer compulsion. Free he is but his freedom is ever bounded by truth and justice; and slavery only
dogs him when he is denied the right to tell the truth or recognize an ideal of justice. “
“Thus all art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter
shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for
gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for
propaganda.”
“I do not doubt that the ultimate art coming from black folk is going to be just as beautiful, and
beautiful largely in the same ways, as the art that comes from white folk, or yellow, or red; but the
point today is that until the art of the black folk compels recognition they will not be rated as human.
And when through art they compel recognition then let the world discover if it will that their art is as
new as it is old and as old as new. “
RK-In other words, Dubois imagines a world where racism disappears when the humanness of all men
(as recognized in their art) surpasses the importance of race, but until black art compels recognition,
Negroes will not be rated as human
Fusing Fiction and Fact:
Contemporary Figures, Propaganda, Historical Figures, Landscapes, and Hypocrisy
1) Theodore Gilmore Bilbo (October 13, 1877 – August 21, 1947) twice served as
governor of Mississippi (1916–20, 1928–32) and later became a U. S. Senator.
2) Proud member of the Ku Klux Klan , staunch supporter of segregation, and
outspoken advocate of disenfranchising the Black population of the U.S.
3) Author of: Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization (1947).
4) Bilbo helped carry Mississippi for Al Smith in the 1928 Presidential election by
claiming that Hoover, in 1927, “insisted that his train be routed through Mount
Bayou... in order that he might visit Mrs. Mary Booze, a negress, socially,“
5) Garvey praised him in return, saying that Bilbo had "done wonderfully well for
the Negro.“
6) Bilbo was a prominent participant in the lengthy filibusters of anti-lynching
bills before the Senate: “ If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open
the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and
crime will be increased a thousandfold [….]
1) John Elliott Rankin (March 29, 1882 – November 26, 1960) was a congressman
from Mississippi (serving from1921-1953)
2) He supported segregation , and--although the Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
provided Blacks with suffrage—Rankin (and others) worked vigorously enact
legislation, which used such things as the poll tax and literacy test to prohibit
Blacks from actually capitalizing on their right to vote.
3) He was considered the most outspoken leader of the Southern Democrats; and
proudly stood for "four- square against a federal ballot for soldiers, eight-square
against the Administration and, of course, sixteen-square in favor of the poll tax,
white supremacy, and Southern womanhood."
4) Rankin was also an outspoken anti-Communist , ranking member of HUAC. and
“Red-baiter,” largely because the Communist Party had not only called for
suffrage for all Blacks in the United States, but had also called for an independent
Black Republic for the Black Belt of the Southeastern United States to be brought
about either via the ballot or armed insurrection.
James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of
the United States (1845–1849). Polk was a slaveholder for his entire life. His
father, Samuel Polk, had left Polk more than 8,000 acres (32 km²) of land, and
divided about 53 slaves to his widow and children after Samuel died. James
inherited twenty of his father's slaves, either directly or from deceased brothers.
Polk rarely sold slaves, although once he became President and could better
afford it, he bought more. Polk's will stipulated that their slaves were to be freed
after his wife Sarah had died. He is considered to be the last “effective” president
to hold office before abolition
Key Themes, Symbols, and Polemics
1) Mulatto is, in part, anti-lynching play that explores
miscegenation in a familial context, and metaphorically on
a national one.
2) Intra-caste Prejudice
3) The unspoken as a tool of survival and oppression
4) The unspoken as a specter
5) Lines
6) Crosses
7) Double Consciousness, Double Standards, Doppelgangers
8) Sunsets
9) The Moon
10) Acting vs. Being Black
Masking:
Acting Black vs./and Being Black
Talking Points
1)
2)
Masking vs. Masking on stage
Fictional Labels for Fictional
Characters: Staging Intra-caste
prejudice
3) Playing and not Playing Black
4) The dangerous example: inside and
outside the play
5) Locating, portraying, and writing the
“Authentic Black”: Where to find it?
6) The Junction
7) Grey Eyes
8) Intra-group Masking
9) A “Mixed” South
10) The implications of the impossibility
of truth
“Christ in Alabama” (1930)
Christ is a Nigger,
Beaten and black—
O, bear your back.
Mary is His Mother
Mammy of the South,
Silence your mouth.
God’s His Father—
White Master above,
Grant us your love.
Most holy bastard
Of the bleeding mouth:
Nigger Christ
On the cross of the South
Close Reading:
Paper Tips, Major Themes, Reading Realist Symbolism
Talking Points
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
Staging the Burden of
Representativity
Manipulating meta-textual
generic markers
Realist Symbolism- Sun, Moon,
and Doors
Robert as Christ and Anti-Christ,
Doubles
Inappropriate contact and
foreshadowing
“blood cross”
“It’s nearly six”/ Rapture/
Matthew 24:36-41 "36] But of
that day and hour knoweth no
man, no, not the angels of
heaven, but my Father only. [37]
But as the days of Noah were, so
shall also the coming of the Son
of man be. [38] For as in the days
that were before the flood they
were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
until the day that Noah entered
into the ark, [39] And knew not
until the flood came, and took
them all away; so shall also the
coming of the Son of man be. [40]
Then shall two be in the field; the
one shall be taken, and the other
left. [41] Two women shall be
grinding at the mill; the one shall
be taken, and the other left."
1) Astronomy- As seen by an
observer on Earth on the imaginary
celestial sphere the Moon crosses
the ecliptic every orbit at positions
called nodes twice every month.
When the full moon occurs in the
same position at the node, a lunar
eclipse can occur. These two nodes
allow two to five eclipses per year,
parted by approximately six
months.
A total penumbral lunar eclipse
dims the moon in direct proportion
to the area of the sun’s disk blocked
by the earth, and is known as a “red
moon”
Apocalypse: Rev: 6: 12
I watched as the Lamb broke the
sixth seal, and there was a great
earthquake. The sun became as
dark as black cloth, and the moon
became as red as blood.
Echoing Walter White:
Property, Poverty, Labor, Sexual Transgression, and the Causes of Lynching
The Great Depression
The setting notes for the play say that it takes place in the present time,
but it takes a little digging to figure out what Hughes means by present
time. Although the play was not published until the 1960s, it was first
performed in 1935, written in 1930, and copyrighted in 1932. Because of
this, Hughes most likely means for the play to take place sometime in the
early 1930s. This was a volatile time in America, which was undergoing
the devastating financial crisis known as the Great Depression. When the
stock market crashed in 1929, the mainly African American population
assumed that this was a “white problem” since African Americans did not
typically own stocks.
Talking Points: 1) Debunking the myth of Lynching: Labor and Sexual Transgression 2) Intra-Caste Prejudice: The Renaissance Drive to Portray
Beauty and Ugliness 3) Mose vs. Moses 4) Property, Inheritance, 5) “Son of yours” and “Ford of Mine” 6) Sun and Son
Recalling White
White also wrote Rope and Faggot (1929); one of the most influential
nonfictional analyses of the causes, patterns, and rates of southern
lynchings. This work debunked the “big lie” that lynching punished black
men for raping white women and it provided White with an opportunity
to deliver a penetrating critique of the southern culture that nourished
this form of blood sport. He marshaled statistics demonstrating that
accusations of rape or attempted rape accounted for less than 30 percent
of all lynchings. Despite the emphasis on sexual issues in instances of
lynching, White insisted that the fury and sadism with which white mobs
attacked their victims stemmed primarily from a desire to keep blacks in
their place and control the black labor force.
Murder, Blood Vengeance, Freedom, Sacrifice, and the
Possibility of Resurrection without Redeption
Talking Points
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
Strangulation, Crucifixion, Suicide
Killing his whiteness? Or killing as whiteness?
“Niggers are living, he’s dead”
Father’s House/ Heaven
The River Jordan
Wade in the water (children)
Wade in the water
Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water
If you don't believe I've been redeemed
God's gonna trouble the water
I want you to follow him on down to Jordan
stream
(I said) My God's gonna trouble the water
You know chilly water is dark and cold
(I know my) God's gonna trouble the water
You know it chills my body but not my soul
(I said my) God's gonna trouble the water
(Come on let's) wade in the water
Wade in the water (children)
Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water
Family Lines and Family Circles
Line, Ellipsis, Triangles, Trinity
Talking Points
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
Flexible Lines and Junctions
Lines and Ellipses
Love Triangles
The Trinity: Holy and Unholy
Ghosts
The impossibility of being
Father, Son, or Holy Ghost
Cora’s Madness: Insanity or
Epiphany
The Impossible Third Term: The
Impossible Ghost
The Risen and the Renaissance
Intertexts
Christ and Oedipus
Religious and National Sacrifice, Responsibility, and Patriarchy
Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocast, king and queen of Thebes After having been married some
time without children, his parents consulted the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi about their
childlessness. The Oracle prophesied that if Laius should have a son, the son would kill him and
marry Jocasta. In an attempt to prevent this prophecy's fulfillment, when Jocasta indeed bore a
son, Laius had his ankles pinned together and gave the boy to a servant to abandon on the nearby
mountain. However, rather than leave the child to die as Laius intended, the sympathetic servant
passed the baby onto a shepherd from Corinth. Little Oedipus (so named after the injuries to his
feet, from when they were pinned together as a child) came to the house of Polybus, king of
Corinthand his queen, Merope, who were without children of their own.
Many years later, Oedipus is told by a drunk that Polybus is not his real father but when he asks his
parents, they deny it. Oedipus, unsure, seeks counsel from the same Delphic Oracle. The Oracle
does not tell him the identity of his true parents but instead tells him that he is destined to couple
with his mother and kill his father (though not specifying in which order). In his attempt to avoid
the fate predicted by the Oracle, he decides to flee from Corinth to Thebes.
As Oedipus travels he comes to the place where three roads meet, Davlia. Here he encounters a
chariot, driven by his (unrecognized) birth-father, King Laius. They fight over who has the right to go
first and Oedipus kills Laius in self defense, unwittingly fulfilling part of the prophecy. The only
witness of the king's death was a slave who fled from a caravan of slaves also traveling on the road.
Many years after the marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta, a plague of infertility strikes the city of
Thebes; crops no longer grow to harvest and women do not bear children. Oedipus, in his hubris
and according to the dictated of and responsibilities of his birthright, asserts that he will end the
pestilence. He sends Creon, Jocasta's brother, to the Oracle at Delphi, seeking guidance. When
Creon returns, Oedipus hears that the murderer of the former King Laius must be found and either
be killed or exiled. In a search for the identity of the killer, Oedipus follows Creon's suggestion and
sends for the blind prophet, Tiresias, who warns him not to try to find the killer. In a heated
exchange, Tiresias is provoked into exposing Oedipus himself as the killer, and the fact that
Oedipus is living in shame because he does not know who his true parents are. Oedipus blames
Creon for Tiresias telling Oedipus that he was the killer. Oedipus and Creon begin a heated
argument. Jocasta enters and tries to calm Oedipus. She tries to comfort him by telling him about
her old husband and his supposed death. Oedipus becomes unnerved as he begins to think that he
might have killed Laius and so brought about the plague. Suddenly, a messenger arrives from
Corinth with the news that King Polybus has died and that the people of Corinth would have
Oedipus as their king. Oedipus is relieved concerning the prophecy, for it could no longer be
fulfilled if Polybus, whom he thinks is his father, is now dead.
Nonetheless, he is wary while his mother lives and does not wish to go. To ease the stress of the
matter, the messenger then reveals that Oedipus was, in fact, adopted. Jocasta, finally realizing
Oedipus' true identity, begs him to abandon his search for Laius' murderer. Oedipus
misunderstands the motivation of her pleas, thinking that she was ashamed of him because he
might have been the son of a slave. She then goes into the palace where she hangs herself. Oedipus
seeks verification of the messenger's story from the very same herdsman who was supposed to
have left Oedipus to die as a baby. From the herdsman, Oedipus learns that the infant raised as the
adopted son of Polybus and Merope was the son of Laius and Jocasta. Thus, Oedipus finally realizes
in great agony that so many years ago, at the place where three roads meet, he had killed his own
father, King Laius, and as consequence, married his mother, Jocasta.
Oedipus goes in search of Jocasta and finds she has killed herself. Taking two pins from her dress,
Oedipus gouges his eyes out.
Talking Points
1) How do
these two
myths of
nation and
patriarchy
complement
and
complicate
one
another?
2) Why layer
multiple
cosmologies
onto “the
present”?
3) What kind of
national
allegory is
MULATtO?