Month: February 2021

BRIDGERTON CHARACTER ANALYSIS: THE DUKE OF HASTINGS, BLACK BYRONIC HERO (ESSAY)

WRITTEN BY

 C HUES

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, is the male lead and deuteragonist of Bridgerton (Season 1).[1] Hastings is a character of color (black British); he represents an updated version of the Byronic hero, a character archetype which was typically reserved for white male characters.[2] Hastings exhibits traits of charisma and extreme intelligence. Daphne Bridgerton, a young woman who agrees to a ruse of a relationship with the Duke, eventually falls in love with him. Her love eventually transcends and overpowers the contempt and indignation the Duke has for his father and gradually helps the Duke come to value himself on his own merits. Through his relationship with Daphne, Hastings overcomes years of abuse from his father and frees himself from the shame of his past and his desire for vengeance.

The Duke exhibits myriad characteristics of the classic literary archetype, the Byronic hero. Dictionary.com describes the Byronic hero with the following qualities:

“Byronic heroes are characterized by having several particular traits. They may be angry, rebellious, seductive, and struggling with vices. They usually have high intelligence and emotional awareness—which tends to make them brood and be outsiders from society. And the Byronic hero is often tortured by guilt or a secret from his past. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is sometimes considered a Byronic hero, as are some of the heroes of the Gothic literature of the late 1700s. Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights has Heathcliff, and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre has Rochester, both often-cited examples of classic Byronic heroes. But Byronic heroes aren’t confined to novels of the 1800s. Modern stories are full of examples. Take Batman, for example, who’s always wearing all black, brooding away in the Batcave, haunted by the murder of his parents, and acting outside the rules of society.”[3] 

The Duke has a mercurial, volatile temperament in which he constantly struggles with feelings of detestation for his father, coupled with a cynical view of society. He is rebellious to his own detriment; Hastings’ feelings of aversion for his father cause him to react either angrily or violently towards those who compare him to the late Duke (regardless of whether the comparison is meant as a compliment or an insult). For example, when The Duke and Daphne are relaxing at the season’s first dance, Cressida Cowper’s mother tells Hastings that he looks just like his father; this intended compliment causes the latter’s smile to vanish and transform into a resentful scowl.[4] When the Duke’s best friend, Anthony, notices that his sister (Daphne) has become sullen and withdrawn (a few weeks after the Duke’s marriage to Daphne), he realizes immediately that Hastings is the source of it and has somehow emotionally disappointed her.[5] Although Anthony starts the argument, The Duke purposely provokes his brother-in-law just so that he can unleash his emotional frustration, “

Anthony: [Sitting with a drink] It is a fine color. And the bubbles…[satisfied exhale] Just right. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good brandy. But sometimes, nothing’ll do but a beer.

Hastings: Would you just get to the point?

Anthony: I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Hastings: Yes, you do.

Anthony: You’re correct. I do. Just like I know that you’ve obviously made a considerable error with my sister.

Hastings: How, may I ask, could you infer that I was the one to make the error?

Anthony: Well, I know my sister quite well. And while she is an unusually capable woman, she is not capable of fucking up this severely.

Hastings: Do you lot ever get tired of pretending to be so perfect? It’s exhausting just watching you.

Anthony: We may not be perfect, but at least we keep our promises.

Hastings: You know nothing of my commitments. I am trying to be a man of my word. I am trying to keep—I would not expect you to understand.

Anthony: What do you mean by that?

Hastings: I mean that you leave a litany of broken promises behind you everywhere you go. Your duty to protect Daphne from Nigel Berbrooke? What about your own reckless affairs? Are you still seeing that opera singer you believe no one knows about?

Anthony: You judge me, yet you cannot possibly understand the responsibility of heading a family, because you’ve never had one.

Hastings: Ah, but Daphne is my family now, and there is no changing that. Though it is most unfortunate that I shall never quite reach the lofty ideal you have demonstrated.

Anthony: What is most unfortunate is the fact that your father was so absent, he never gave you a proper example of how to lead a household.

Hastings: [Pauses angrily] Well, you certainly make it look difficult.

Anthony: I beg your pardon.

Hastings: What with your constant struggles. You cannot manage it can you?

Anthony: Hastings—

Hastings: Your responsibility. You, fulfilling the promise that every firstborn son makes to his father before he dies. Do you think he is looking down on you now, ashamed—mortified at what you have done? I wonder, what would the former viscount say?”

The two then erupt into a brawl, which is broken up.[6]

Even after the fight, the Duke antagonizes Anthony with a wry smile and a caustic laugh.[7] Here we see the Duke sometimes escalates arguments into physical fights and reacts viciously towards other men in his life; he uses them as a substitute for the father he still wishes were alive only so that he could torment him further in revenge. When the Duke confronts Nigel Berbrooke (Berbrooke attempted to rape Daphne when she refused his advances, but she was able to knock him out and protect herself), he warns him to stay away from Daphne. By the end of their argument, the Duke goes into a rage and relentlessly beats Berbrooke nearly to death.[8] The Duke’s action was justified in that Berbooke was a predator who refused to stop his coercive and forceful pursuit of an uninterested woman. Berbrooke was sexually violent and devious, and he also disregarded any concept of consent by comparing Daphne to an animal that could be bought or sold. However, a substantial amount of the Duke’s anger towards Berbrooke was also channeled by feelings of hatred towards his father. Notice that the Duke does not immediately hit Berbrooke when they are discussing Daphne. He is angry at the latter’s treatment toward the eldest Bridgerton daughter and warns Nigel off, but he does not become truly wrathful and attack Berbrooke until his father is mentioned, “

Berbrooke: [follows the Duke down a pathway at night] Only me, Your Grace.

Hastings: Are you following me, Berbrooke? I thought this matter settled.

Berbrooke: It was settled until you had to go and spoil it. I implore you to speak again with the viscount. Last night was a mistake, I admit. A temporary lack of judgment.  You understand that, do you not?

Hastings: There is not and never will be any kind of understanding between the two of us. Go home, Berbrooke.

Berbrooke: But you do not need her. You’re a duke. You already have the money, and the connections, and the standing. I need her. Why can you not just let me have this one?

Hastings: I think it really ought to be up to Miss Bridgerton.

Berbrooke: When I am buying a horse, I do not negotiate with the horse.

Hastings: Should you continue to follow me—

Berbrooke: Why then, have you not asked for her hand if you are so fond of her, and she is so smitten with you? Why have you not already proposed? Unless you have already had her. Well if you have, you must tell me. For if I had already known she was loose and damaged, not intact, I never would have—

Hastings: Stop talking [The Duke towers over Nigel and glares at him]. I shall not have you question the lady’s unimpeachable honor again.

Berbrooke: Yes. Yes, very well. That is all I had hoped to hear.

Hastings: You do not deserve to breathe the same air as her. Now, go home.

Berbrooke: And you do? I’ve heard the stories of your father, Hastings. I know how badly he wanted a son, an heir, and I know how badly he tried to get one when it seemed your poor mother could not deliver. If anyone were to ever turn a blind eye to a man’s temporary lack of judgment, it would be you. The apple should not fall very far, should it?

Hastings headbutts Berbrooke, and then viciously and repeatedly punches him until his face is almost unrecognizable.[9]

The Duke warns Berbrooke thrice about leaving Daphne alone, but he gives no warning upon hearing Berbrooke’s insults regarding the relationship between himself and his father. The timing of the Duke’s reaction seems to show that his love for Daphne is initially outweighed by feelings of hate for his father. This is further substantiated because immediately after the Duke finishes beating Berbrooke, a flashback of the Duke’s father is shown. Hastings’ father antagonized and treated him inhumanely through constant verbal and emotional abuse, simply because as a child he suffered with stuttering. The Duke’s interaction with his father seems to have left him with a disdain for talking extensively (although he hides the problem well and has mostly corrected it),[10] and he resorts to physical confrontation to solve his problems (where men are involved). An interesting theme is that the physical altercation that the Duke has between Nigel and Anthony are both a result of the comparison of the Duke to his father. Both altercations start as arguments centered on Daphne; they only get physical when a character mentions the Duke’s father. Although Daphne expresses her love for Hastings and tells him, “I burn for you”[11] and that she wishes for a family and life with him, his resentment for his dad is initially too great for him to supersede those feelings with what little love he can return for Daphne. For example, when the Duke realizes that his friend, Will, has thrown a boxing match so that Will’s family (his wife Alice and their children) can reap the benefits of the monetary bet that Lord Featherington has placed against him,[12] Hasting’s immediate reaction is anger instead of empathy. Hastings has just had an argument with his wife over his lie that he cannot father children (he simply chooses not to have kids, whereas she believed he was physically incapable of biologically fathering a child),[13] and instead of facing Daphne to work their problems out, he takes his frustration out on his friend:

Will: It appears I could have used that luck of yours today, Your Grace.

Hastings: Indeed. Though you still managed to put on quite a performance. If you needed another investor or more money, Will, you could have come to me.

Will: I appreciate the offer, friend, but I do not need your charity.

Hastings: What happened to your honor?

Will: My honor? Tell me, Your Grace, whatever could be more honorable besides taking care of one’s family? Besides doing what needs to be done?

Hastings: Is that what you hope to tell Alice? You truly believe she will come to understand your deceit?

Will: Perhaps you should stop worrying about my marriage, and instead put your mind to your own.

Hastings: That is not what this is about.

Will: Is it not? Because I’d be willing to wager your wife says differently.

Hastings: Watch yourself [closes in on Will in frustration]

Will: You’re angry, but not with me. So take it somewhere else, and finally do something about it.”

Will leaves the boxing tent, bumping into the Duke on the way out.[14]

Whenever the Duke becomes angry or enraged, his initial reaction is to get into a physical fight with another man. In the first episode, when Anthony confronts the Duke about the latter’s courtship with Daphne (he believes the Duke is a womanizer who has no intentions to marry his sister and is simply stringing her along), the Duke is seen boxing his friend Will. Anthony trades places with Will and he and the Duke exchange blows as they converse, with the Duke having the upper hand.[15] While boxing Anthony, the Duke has a flashback of his father.[16] Hasting’s father discovers that the Duke has difficulty speaking and insults his son by calling him “an imbecile.”[17] Virtually each time Hastings gets into a physical fight, he has recollections of his father’s mistreatment and verbal abuse towards him. When he cannot get into a fight, such as near the end of his honeymoon, he begins shooting game[18] (typically considered a masculine activity during the time in that English society). The Duke exhibits the traits common to Byronic heroes such as a quick temper, an inclination towards physical fighting, and an overall taciturn nature. He disdains qualities that are (wrongly) seen as feminine by society such as gossip and even talking in general, but his more masculine traits are largely exhibited and practiced to protect himself from experiencing the pain from his childhood.

Despite the Duke’s considerable intelligence (even from a young age he mentioned that he had been “receiving high marks in all of [his] studies” and was skilled at riding, fencing, and shooting),[19] his father was more concerned at the social implications of a son who had trouble speaking. However, his father’s intimidating presence and the pressure he put on the Duke to be flawless further led to the Duke’s difficulty with speech.[20] Will mentions to the Duke, “You always were a fast learner”,[21] and unfortunately this meant that Hastings sometimes learned quickly from the wrong person or learned the wrong lesson. The Duke’s father mentions that they “have been granted this line. The monarchy itself has declared it. But it will only remain ours so long as we remain extraordinary.”[22] Since the Queen, a black woman, married the King, a white man, black people in English society (in this fictionalized, alternate version of history) have been elevated to being on the same social status as whites.[23][24] The Duke’s father implies that although blacks have risen in English society, that their status can be snatched away from them once they show any signs of imperfection. The Duke seems to carry this lesson into adulthood when he dismisses Lady Danbury(his mother figure, who raised him after his father abandoned him)’s assessment that the King married a black woman which gave them the same protection and rights as whites. They discuss, “

Lady Danbury: I understand that you believe such subjects as love and devotion, affection and attachment, you find it all trite and frivolous. But have you any idea those very things are precisely what have allowed a new day to begin to dawn in this society? Look at our Queen, look at our King. Look at their marriage. Look at everything it is doing for us, allowing us to become. We were two separate societies, divided by color, until a King fell in love with one of us. Love, your Grace, conquers all.

Hastings: I believe that remains to be seen. The King may have chosen his Queen. He may have elevated us from novelties in their eyes to now dukes and royalty, and at that same whim, he may just as easily change his mind, a mind as we all know, that is hanging on by one very loose and tenuous thread. So no, I am sorry, Lady Danbury, we are in disagreement here. Love changes nothing.”[25]

The Duke’s cynicism about class and society is learned from his father, along with his initial inability to love. The Duke’s status as a black man, although only briefly mentioned, is one of the ways in which he represents a more diverse and updated version of the Byronic hero. Most Byronic heroes were traditionally white male characters and remain so to this day,[26] and although the show does not delve deep into the issues of the racial caste system that English society invented and thrust upon its people, Bridgerton still represents a start of progress for the Byronic hero archetype as representative of people of color as well as white people.

When the Duke is first seen in episode 2, he is shown sleeping with an unnamed woman;[27] Daphne implies before their marriage that Hastings had casual sex with multiple women.[28] The Duke also slyly brags about his womanizing to Daphne during the early stages of their ruse.[29]  Further, Anthony criticizes Hastings’ copious one-night stands by saying that he is constantly “going in and out of brothels.”[30] The Duke has the Byronic hero trait of being charming or “seductive” in the eyes of women. His popularity has risen outside of the fictional world of Bridgerton; Hastings has become a character that has gained fandom and appreciation among female viewers of the show (also leading to appreciation of the Duke’s actor, Regé-Jean Page).[31][32][33] Daphne initially has fun with Hastings on her honeymoon, and even brags to one of her maids (who listens in with the other maids from a closed door when the two have intercourse) that her husband is a skilled lover.[34] What Daphne does not realize, is that although the two share a deep physical attraction and chemistry, her husband is more concerned with passion and feelings, whereas she genuinely loves him. The Duke’s womanizing ways, along with his secrets about his past (the vow he made to spite his father on the latter’s deathbed) lead Daphne to later question the Duke’s fidelity. When he comes home late after boxing with his friend, Will, they have the following exchange, “

Daphne: Where have you been all night?

Hastings: I did not think you concerned about my whereabouts.

Daphne: Is this truly what our marriage will be for the future? You out all night, doing God knows what with God knows whom?

Hastings: With whom? You wound me. Not three weeks since we were wed, yet you already imagine me disloyal.

Daphne: Is it such a wild imagining? We both know your reputation, Your Grace.”[35]

Before his marriage to Daphne, the Duke was a heavily desired potential suitor for many unmarried women. He complains about his predicament in episode 1, and thus he hatches a ruse for his benefit and Daphne’s (she agrees to the ruse, and benefits because she believes it will bring her potential suitors).[36] The Duke’s plan reveals his cunning and intelligence, but also substantiates his skills as a convincing liar. This scheme foreshadows his betrayal of Daphne, where he refuses to give her children but makes it appear as though he has a physical predicament preventing him from doing so.[37] Hastings and Daphne begin to experience genuine feelings for one another and marry; the Duke’s secret vow to his father that he will never father children[38] becomes even more damaging. The vow that he makes to a dead man remains more important to the marriage vows he made to his wife.[39] After Daphne discovers that the Duke has been lying to her and pulling out at the end of sex to prevent her pregnancy, she tricks her husband into a situation in which he cannot pull out. The following exchange occurs afterwards, “

Hastings: I told you I cannot give you children.

Daphne: “Cannot” and “will not” are two entirely different things. You chose this for yourself. You chose to lie to me.

Hastings: I did not lie. I thought you were prepared. I thought you understood how a child came to be. 

Daphne: You took my future from me, the one thing I wanted more than anything. You knew, you knew that becoming a mother one day, to have a family of my own one day, you knew that was all I ever wanted.

Hastings: I was prepared to die on that dueling field rather than marry you and take your dream away. I would have died for you. You were the one who insisted on this union.”[40]

Although the Duke is correct that Daphne insisted on the marriage and he did not initially want to go through with it (although he reluctantly agreed),[41] he is incorrect in that he would have died on the dueling field for her. Certainly, Hastings would have died on the field because he refused to shoot Anthony and he accepted what he thought was his fate,[42] but the truth is that he would have died for his hatred for his father as opposed to his love for Daphne. Hastings has become so blinded by rage and revenge that when given the choice to marry a woman that he claims to love or dueling to the death to fulfill a vow of hate that he made to spite his father, he chooses the latter. Also, the Duke’s death on the dueling field would have ensured that he did not father children, which is exactly what Hastings wanted. Therefore, Hastings’ proclamation that he would have died for Daphne is a further continuation of a series of lies; Hastings would have died for only himself and his feelings of contempt for a dead man.

              The Duke’s arrogance leads him to boast about his natural intelligence and charisma with women,[43] but his haughtiness also acts as a shield to disguise his inferiority complex and the sense that he can never measure up to his father’s ideals. The Duke mentions to Anthony during an argument about Daphne that the Bridgertons think themselves above everyone else. He castigates Anthony, snidely remarking, “Do you lot ever get tired of pretending to be so perfect?”[44] The Duke’s criticism of his wife and her entire family is more reflective of the Duke himself, as he is the one who comes up with the ruse with Daphne during the beginning of their relationship (which requires them to be nearly perfect in their deception). When Daphne expresses her anger toward her husband by saying that his “duplicity comes so naturally” to him, he returns her (critical, but accurate) remark with a sarcastic reply.[45] The Duke’s frequent use of sarcasm are rooted in the same defense mechanisms that allow him to frequently boast and brag about himself. When Daphne reads the letters that her husband sent to his father begging for his approval,[46] she realizes that the Duke’s feelings of hatred for his father can only be conquered with tenacity on her part. Just as the Duke stubbornly holds on to his wrath, Daphne convinces herself that she must stubbornly hold onto love. She sees that although her husband is wrong in his treatment towards her (by lying to her and subsequently ignoring her, and essentially giving up on their marriage), underneath all the Duke’s hate, he is simply still trying to win his father’s approval and become perfect in his eyes. When the Duke and Daphne plan what they believe to be their last ball, they extensively plot on how many dances they should have and meticulously comb through every detail to ensure that the event is perfect. However, as the dances for the ball take place outside, rain begins to unceremoniously pour down and ruin the evening for all the guests.[47] Once the guests leave, Daphne understands the lesson that the universe seems to be signaling to her: that regardless of how much anyone tries to achieve perfection, no one will be perfect, and that true love is to accept someone’s flaws in addition to their attributes. Daphne and the Duke engage in a conversation which finally makes the Duke realize that he loves his wife more than he hates his father, and that he cannot measure himself by anyone else’s ideals. Whereas his father could not accept the Duke because he struggled with speech (a condition which should not have been blamed on the Duke, and Hastings succeeded in nearly every other endeavor he took up), Daphne loves Hastings even after discovering his secret of shame. They discuss the futility of living up to anyone else’s ideals, “

Hastings: Daphne, I am so sorry.

Daphne: For what? Even a Duke cannot control the weather.

Hastings: I know that this is not what you had envisioned for the evening.

Daphne: Certainly not.

Hastings: And for that, I-

Daphne: It is better. I know why you made that vow to your father. I found the letters you wrote as a child, and I read them.

Hastings: Daphne—

Daphne: Just because something is not perfect—does not make it any less worthy of love. He made you believe that you needed to be without fault in order to be loved, but he was wrong. Should you need any proof of the matter, then—then look just here. I am tired of pretending. And I cannot continue acting as if I—as if I do not love you. Because I do. I love all of you. Even the parts that you believe are too dark and too shameful. Every scar. Every flaw. Every imperfection.  I love you. You may think you are too damaged and too broken to ever allow yourself to be happy, but you can choose differently, Simon. You can choose to love me as much as I love you. That should not be up to anyone else. That cannot be up to anyone else. It can only be up to you.[48]

During the exchange, as the Duke blames himself for the rain that put an early end to their ball, Daphne corrects him and tells him that he cannot blame himself for things beyond his control. Similarly, the Duke spent years blaming himself for being born with a speech impediment (and struggling with stuttering and muteness), both of which were not things that he brought upon himself or could control. Daphne’s words of love and her refusal to give up on understanding her husband cause him to change and finally reciprocate her love, and they soon have a son.[49] Daphne gets the family she always wanted, but the Duke also gets the family he needs to finally overcome his past.

            The Duke is a new, revamped version of the Byronic hero archetype. Hastings exhibits traits of charm and deep intelligence. He has substantial wealth and land, a brooding temperament, womanizing ways, and a shameful secret which he keeps hidden from everyone around him. However, the Duke, as a character of color, represents a change in the perception of what a Byronic hero should and could look like. The Duke is initially blinded by rage and revenge, but the love that Daphne Bridgerton gives him helps him to become a better man, husband, and eventually father who lives life on his own values and standards.

---

[1] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episodes 1-8. 2020.

[2] “Byronic Hero.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/byronic-hero. Accessed February 27, 2021.

[3] Ibid. “Byronic Hero.” Dictionary.com.  

[4] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 1. 2020.

[5] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 7. 2020.

[6] Ibid. Episode 7.

[7] Ibid. Episode 7.

[8] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 2. 2020.

[9] Ibid. Episode 2, 5, 8.

[10] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 5, 8. 2020.

[11] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 5. 2020.

[12] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 8. 2020.

[13] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 6. 2020.

[14] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 8.

[15] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 2. 2020.

[16] Ibid. Episode 2.

[17] Ibid. Episode 2.

[18] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 7. 2020.

[19] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 2. 2020.

[20] Ibid. Episode 2.

[21] Ibid. Episode 2.

[22] Ibid. Episode 2.

[23] Stuever, Hank. “Review | In ‘Bridgerton,’ Shonda Rhimes Stakes a Sumptuous, Provocative Claim on Netflix – and the Traditional Period Drama.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 23 Dec. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/bridgerton-netflix-shonda-rhimes-review/2020/12/22/74503aa0-43c6-11eb-975c-d17b8815a66d_story.html. Accessed February 27, 2021.

[24] VanArendonk, Kathryn. “Bridgerton Is a Heady, Inviting Fantasy of Pleasure and True Love.” Vulture, Vulture, 21 Dec. 2020, www.vulture.com/article/bridgerton-review-netflix-series-shondaland.html. Accessed February 27, 2021.

[25] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 4. 2020.

[26] “Byronic Hero.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/byronic-hero.

[27] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 2. 2020.

[28] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 4. 2020.

[29] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 2. 2020.

[30] Ibid. Episode 2.

[31] Fallon, Claire, et al. “’Bridgerton’ Is An Intoxicating Romantic Fantasy Dressed Up Like A Period Piece.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 22 Dec. 2020, www.huffpost.com/entry/netflix-bridgerton-review_n_5fe0c2e8c5b60f82885877f2.

[32] Gilcrease, Grayson. 24 Photos of Regé-Jean Page That Even Lady Whistledown Would Swoon Over, www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebrity/move-over-mr-darcy-reg-c3-a9-jean-page-is-the-regency-era-man-of-our-dreams/ss-BB1c9tqX. Accessed February 27, 2021.

[33] Spade, David. The Netflix Afterparty, E2: Bridgerton. January 23, 2021.

[34] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 6. 2020.

[35] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 7. 2020.

[36] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 1. 2020.

[37] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 4,6. 2020.

[38] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 2. 2020.

[39] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 6. 2020.

[40] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 6. 2020.

[41] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 4. 2020.

[42] Ibid. Episode 4.

[43] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 2. 2020.

[44] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 7. 2020.

[45] Ibid. Episode 7.

[46] Van Dusen, Chris; Rhimes, Shonda; Beers, Betsy; Quinn Julia. Bridgerton, Season 1. Episode 8. 2020.

[47] Ibid. Episode 8.

[48] Ibid. Episode 8.

[49] Ibid. Episode 8.

             

WRITTEN BY C HUES   

            PUBLISHED February 21, 2021

Rue, the main protagonist of Euphoria, is a young African American teenager who struggles with drug addiction, mental illness, and low self-esteem. As most people that Rue meets and interacts with do not show her compassion or care, and terrible tragedies lead to further mental and emotional deterioration, Rue turns to drugs as a means of muting the chaos and violence that torture her every day. However, the same drugs that she uses for comfort cause her to act outside of her nature and experience feelings of shame. She begins to view her relationship with certain people as the same as her relationship with drugs, such as her friend Jules. Only through Rue’s relationship with Ali (also a drug addict, albeit recovering) can she gradually begin to gain self-confidence, self-worth, and forgive herself for her failures and mistakes.

In Euphoria, the meaning of Rue’s name reflects the pensive nature of the character. “Rue” means:

“verb (used with object), rued, ru·ing. 1. to feel sorrow over; repent of; regret bitterly:to rue the loss of opportunities. 2. to wish that (something) had never been done, taken place, etc.: I rue the day he was born. verb (used without object), rued, ru·ing. 3. to feel sorrow, repentance, or regret.noun 4. sorrow; repentance; regret. 5. pity or compassion.”[1]

In episode 2, Rue has a flashback when she picked up a shard of broken glass, pointed it at her mother and threatened to kill her.[2] Rue expresses regret for causing both her mother and sister pain, “If I could be a different person, I promise you, I would. Not because I want it, but because they do. And therein lies the catch.”[3] Not once does Rue ever say that she wants to get clean for the potential change that she wants to see actualized in herself, and the reason is because Rue does not feel that she is worthy of change and self-improvement. By constantly placing the emphasis on what others want for her, Rue incessantly sets herself up for failure. This attitude also allows Rue to blame others for her failures instead of accepting her disease of addiction and trying to change. When Rue’s drug dealer Fez refuses to give Rue any more drugs because he realizes that it is slowly killing Rue and putting her life in danger, Rue lashes out at him and blames him for her addiction. After he closes the door in her face, Rue screams,

“Fez, you’re full of shit man! You know you make your living off of selling drugs to teenagers, and now all of a sudden you wanna have a fuckin’ moral high ground. You’re a fucking drop out drug dealer. You know that? You’re a fucking drop out drug dealer with seven functioning fucking brain cells. Open the door! Fuck you, Fez—Ok! Are you doing this because you care about me? If you cared about me, you wouldn’t have sold me the fucking drugs in the first place…You fucking ruined my life.”[4]

Although Fez certainly aided in Rue’s addiction, Rue had been abusing drugs long before Fez started selling to her, and initially started using drugs after her father was diagnosed with cancer and she was forced to take care of him at night (her mom had to take two jobs to cover the medical bills).[5] Out of sheer curiosity, Rue took her dad’s pills as he was sleeping, and this engendered a relentless cycle of addiction. Rue has a pattern of placing the blame elsewhere, as she says in episode 1, “I didn’t built this system, nor did I fuck it up”[6] to casually dismiss her drug addiction. In episode 1, Rue mentions the circumstances of her birth, saying,

“I was once happy, content, sloshing around in my own private, primordial pool. Then one day, for reasons beyond my control, I was repeatedly crushed, over and over by the cruel cervix of my mother Leslie. I put up a good fight, but I lost—for the first time, but not the last. I was born three days after 9/11. My mother and father spent two days in the hospital, holding me under the soft glow of the television, watching the towers fall over and over again—until the feelings of grief gave way to numbness.”[7]

Rue literally rues the day she was born; she expresses that she felt happy being insulated and protected from the outside world when she was still inside of her mother. Rue’s first moment of birth, despite not knowing what was occurring at the time, was seeing death and destruction. She sees this as a sign that her life was destined to be miserable and is the start of her pessimistic perspective that life is a series of tragic circumstances beyond her control. Rue even expresses resentment toward her mom for giving birth to her, blaming her “cruel cervix” for pushing her out into a chaotic and violent world. In episode 1, when Rue goes to a party and talks to Fez, she explains,

“I remember when I was 11 years old, and it was a couple of months after my dad got diagnosed and we got the results back from the prognosis, and it was really good. It was like 80/20, and we decided to celebrate, so we decided to get a bunch of Chinese food. I remember that night, I was laying between my parents in bed, and, uh, all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe. It was like, there was no more air left in the world. And I was gasping, and I was panicking, and they called the ambulance and I thought it was like, an allergic reaction or some shit, and then when I got to the hospital, they gave me liquid valium. Yeah, to calm me down. And when it hit me, I thought—this is it. This is the feeling I’ve been searching for my entire life, for as long as I can remember, because suddenly, the world went quiet. And I felt safe…in my own head.”[8]

Rue’s reliance on drugs stem from her inability to deal with the tragedy that life sometimes unfairly and undeservedly throws at innocent people. Rue was born into a world that wasn’t quiet, facing the aftermath of the harsh and tragic attacks that occurred on 9/11. Rue constantly tries to search for meaning behind the causes of things, and she turns to drugs because the comfort that they bring supersede her lack of answers from the world or from a higher power. Rue tells Ali (Rue’s mentor, a recovering drug addict and her sponsor at her Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings) that she often has “racing thoughts”, and drugs seem to be a temporary solution as they suppress these thoughts.[9] When a therapist tells Mr. Bennett and Leslie that a young Rue may have OCD, ADD, General Anxiety Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder,[10] she tries to search for a reason. Rue says, “It’s not like I was physically abused, or I had a shortage of clean water, or was molested by a family member. So explain this shit to me.”[11] OCD and Bipolar Disorder are often genetic and do not have to be a result of anything external;[12] Rue struggles to understand the nature of her mental illness and becomes obsessed with finding out why she has to struggle with them because she is unable to equip herself with the right tools[13] to face and at least try to conquer them.[14]

            Rue’s battle with drug addiction also has roots in the unsympathetic, cold, and compassionless nature of the world and how others mistreat her. Virtually no one seems to have any empathy for Rue, and her classmates often mock her instead of trying to understand the nature of her disease. In episode 2, when Rue is in a school assembly and is forced by one of her teachers to tell her classmates about her summer (which was mostly spent in rehab), Rue has flashbacks about threatening her mother with a piece of glass and about her sister finding her overdosed and unconscious. Rue becomes increasingly nervous, begins to have a panic attack, and subsequently runs into the bathroom in a frenzy. Instead of expressing concern, her classmates mock her, with one classmate saying, “I bet it’s brain damage.”[15] Immediately after, Rue is seen in the bathroom stall taking out drugs to calm herself down. When Rue returns to school from a summer of rehab, her classmates make caustic jabs toward her addiction, remarking, “I thought you were dead”, to which Rue responds by flipping them off.[16] One of Rue’s classmates, Nate Jacobs, tried to sexually assault her a few years prior at their high school during the Freshman Formal.[17] He turns his attention to Rue’s friend, Jules, and starts to harass and blackmail her. When Rue finally confronts him, Nate mocks Rue’s drug addiction, saying that “I know over the years you’ve lost some brain cells.”[18] Even the classmates who do not outright condemn Rue fail to understand her and still (unintentionally) disrespect her struggles. For example, a college friend and former classmate of Rue’s, Christopher McKay, tells his friend Nate Jacobs that “you know, my mom is real OCD, she notices the smallest shit: a little scratch on the wall, the dishes are out of order.”[19] However, this is a common misconception of OCD and disrespects the horror that people who actually have OCD, like Rue, have to experience: “OCD is one of those terms that some people misuse as a way to describe people who like things super-clean or arranged just so. But if you have the actual condition that’s Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, how it negatively affects your life is very real.”[20] For example, Rue is seen as a child obsessively counting the lights on the ceiling of her family’s house, and when she is interrupted by her mother, she restarts the count again. Her mother’s interruptions cause her to break down in tears.[21] Rue seems to do her counting ritual to ease her constant anxiety. When drugs cannot calm her or are unavailable to her, she needs to use other methods such as counting to slow her mind down. Even as a seventeen-year-old, Rue repeats the same obsessive counting when she becomes extremely anxious. In episode 7, as Rue wracks her brain trying to solve a case that involves Nate Jacobs blackmailing her friend Jules, Rue paces diagonally in an alleyway, and repeatedly counts out loud to six.[22] A common theme of OCD is counting, in which the symptom is that “you say numbers in a certain pattern out loud or to yourself.”[23] Actress Lena Dunham of the show Girls elaborates on the misconception of OCD:

“I really wanted to make sure that the OCD stuff felt realistic, it’s something that I’ve struggled with and so I feel as though I’m able to shed a certain kind of light on the experience and do something that doesn’t necessary feel like a cookie cutter idea of OCD. One of my greatest pet peeves is when people go like, ‘I just love it when my room’s clean, I’m so OCD’—and it’s like actually, no, you’re just a neat person and not a slob animal. My hope is that, even though not everybody counts to eight, everybody has had that feeling of wanting to hide a thought process that felt shameful to them.”[24]

Indeed, OCD often makes the sufferer feel shameful because of the racing and dark thoughts that it produces in the mind, and the sufferer may also feel powerless as they are unable to control these thoughts. Rue’s mother tries to comfort her by telling her that she is not alone in having mental illness and compares her to famous individuals with similar struggles such as Vincent van Gogh and Sylvia Plath.[25] Like Rue, van Gogh and Plath are now believed to have suffered from bipolar disorder and both committed suicide.[26] In the Trouble episode, Rue has a discussion with Ali in which the latter mentions the alternative rock band Nirvana and the depression that was a constant theme in their music. The lead singer and lead guitarist of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, also suffered from bipolar disorder, drug addiction, and committed suicide.[27] Similarly to Rue, Cobain expressed feelings of shame in regards to circumstances beyond his control (such as the divorce of his parents) that even predated his drug addiction and lasted throughout his entire life.[28] Studies substantiate that many people with bipolar disorder or depression often have a high rate of suicide and substance abuse issues, “People with bipolar disorder are at a greater risk for suicide if they are not getting treatment. The National Mental Health Association reports that 30%-70% of suicide victims have suffered from a form of depression”,[29] and “[S]ubstance use disorders (SUDs) are extremely common in bipolar I and II disorders. The lifetime prevalence of SUDs is at least 40% in bipolar I patients.”[30] Since Rue sees that people who suffer from mental illness (such as bipolar disorder) like her often take their own lives, she believes that she will suffer the same fate. She tells Ali that, “I just don’t plan on being here that long.”[31] The ultimate irony of Rue’s drug addiction is that she uses drugs to protect herself from the cruelty and torment that runs rampant in the world, yet drugs have led Rue to unfairly condemn and judge herself as a cruel person who torments her loved ones.

Rue’s relationship with Jules is derived mostly from the high that Jules gives Rue, which is the same feeling that Rue experiences from drugs. Rue is constantly chasing a feeling instead of facing reality; Jules gives Rue the same feeling of numbness that drugs provide. When Rue first meets Jules, they bike back to Jules’ house and their very first experience together is doing drugs. They take the drugs on the bed and then hold each other under the protection of the covers, where this exchange occurs, “

Rue: Do you feel anything?

Jules: Do you feel anything?

Rue: No. I’m just so happy.”[32]

Just as Rue describes that she felt “happy” in her mother’s womb before being exposed to life, and Rue expresses a feeling of happiness when she was given liquid valium to negate her nerves about her dad’s cancer diagnosis, Rue’s relationship with Jules is rooted in the same form of comfort, numbness, and safety which shield her and provide a false and temporary sense of security from the cruelty of life. Further, when Rue meets Jules afterwards at school in Episode 2, Rue says, “It was the first day of school, my heart was racing. I had made a new best friend and for the first time since getting out of rehab, I was feeling good about the world.”[33] At this point, Rue has just met Jules two days ago,[34] yet still refers to her as a “new best friend”. Best friends cannot be new; friendships take time to develop and grow. Later, when Rue goes to Fez’s house to purchase more drugs, she meets a drug dealer named Mouse who forces Rue to take Fentanyl. When Fez pays off the dealer to leave Rue alone, Rue tells Fez in her drug-induced high, “I’m so happy”.[35] The statement “I’m so happy” are almost the exact same words Rue tells Jules when she first meets her, and they use drugs together. When Rue meets Ali to talk about her struggles, she reiterates her belief that Jules is her best friend and makes her feel good, “

Ali: Does the way in which you feel about [Jules] remind you of anything?

Rue: What do you mean?

Ali: You know, like the obsession, feelings, the withdrawal.

Rue: What, like drugs?

Ali: Bingo [while nodding].

Rue: Ok, but this is a good thing.

Ali: Didn’t drugs feel real good the first time you tried them?[36]

Indeed, in episode 5, Rue describes her relationship with Jules by comparing her best friend to Fentanyl:

“Nothing in the world comes close to opiates. A good ES 7.5 Vicodin, but honestly, the best thing I’ve ever had is Fentanyl. There is not a thing on the planet Earth that comes close to Fentanyl, except Jules. Jules is a close second. And you know what would be better—Jules and Fentanyl. But I can’t do both, because Jules won’t have me. So for now, I’ll choose Jules.”[37]

Rue’s description of Jules is very revealing because it corroborates Ali’s belief that Jules is just another drug to Rue; albeit a new and interesting one. However, Rue does not even consider Jules to be the best drug in her life, as she states Fentanyl gives her a better feeling. Since Jules threatens to stop being Rue’s friend if the latter continues using drugs, Rue decides to stay clean for Jules temporarily. Once Jules either disappoints her or their relationship somehow ends, Rue knows that she will inevitably return to drugs. Thus, she says “for now, I’ll choose Jules.” Interestingly, Rue says that she will “choose” Jules, yet still manages to place the blame on Jules when she relapses.[38] Rue believes that Jules was cheating on her, despite that they never discussed in full detail the status of their relationship.[39] In an exchange with Ali, he exposes Rue’s lies and misconceptions about her relationship status with Jules, “

Rue: I still blame Jules for all this shit.

Ali: Why?

Rue: Because I was clean. And I was like gonna stay clean. And for the most part I was pretty happy, and fuckin’ Jules.

Ali: Wait—wait, you were gonna stay clean?

Rue: Yeah.

Ali: With pills in your room?

Rue: I wasn’t taking them.

Ali: You were saving them.

Rue: Yeah.

Ali: Even though you just said you were gonna stay clean.

Rue: But—

Ali: And the relapsing was Jules’ fault?

Rue: Ali, you don’t know what she did to me.

Ali: You’re right, I don’t.

Rue: She cheated on me, when I was sober, she literally cheated on me.

Ali: I didn’t know that.

Rue: Exactly.

Ali: I thought you two were just friends.

Rue: No.

Ali: Ah. When did it shift?

Rue: Uh, the night at the carnival she came over and we like kissed a whole bunch.

Ali: Ok, but when did it become a relationship?

Rue: I just told you—that night.

Ali: It became a relationship that night?

Rue: Yeah.

Ali: So it wasn’t just kissing—you two talked about being together?

Rue: What? That’s so weird.

Ali: What?

Rue: Why would we talk about it?

Ali: Because that’s how people get into relationships, Rue, they talk about it.

Rue: [scoffs] I mean, we said “I love you” a lot.

Ali: I say “I love you” to my barber.

Rue: Ok, yeah, but you don’t make out with your barber.

Ali: Even if I did, my barber might just assume it was a casual thing.[40]

Rue accuses Jules of being unfaithful when Jules hooks up with an old friend.[41] The truth is that Rue projects her own unfaithfulness onto Jules, as Rue can be said to be in a love triangle with Jules and whichever drug she prefers at the time. When Rue describes Jules’ supposed betrayal of her by leaving town without her, Rue says,

“She lied to me and manipulated me. Like the whole thing at the train station, her tryna get me to run away with her even though I was, um, scared and um, didn’t have my medications, kinda fucked up and selfish. I didn’t think she was actually like gonna go, like leave me.”[42]

However, Rue fails to mention that Jules only leaves her at the train station when Rue refuses to go with her, despite Jules’ pleading. Rue reverses her choice to get on the train at the last minute, even though the decision to leave town was Rue’s idea and was agreed upon by both parties.[43] Show creator Sam Levinson states that “Rue’s perspective is very much Rue’s perspective, and she’s not always accurate in her retelling of things, and she is limited in her ability to understand the emotional wellbeing of other characters.”[44] Also, Rue tells Ali that right from the moment she decided to get clean for Jules, she secretly had a stash of drugs “for emergency purposes” that she chose to hold onto when things inevitably turned for the worse. Ali tells Rue, “So you never stood a chance.”[45]

            Rue’s relationship with Ali reveals the most depth and truth about Rue because Ali can detect when Rue is lying; Ali gets Rue to talk honestly and freely (which is something she does not typically do when conversing with most characters). When Rue gives a speech at NA about an overdose and lies to the group about being sober for sixty days, Ali confronts her outside, “

Ali: Yo, sixty days, no small feat.

Rue: Thanks.

Ali: Very moving stuff.

Rue: Thank you.

Ali: Can I ask you something? How’d you survive that OD?

Rue: What do you mean?

Ali: I mean, somebody had to save your life, right?

Rue: It was my sister.

Ali: Older or younger?

Rue: Younger. Um, I have to get home.

Ali: Like twelve-thirteen?

Rue: I don’t really understand what the point-

Ali: Curiosity.

Rue: Yeah, she was thirteen.

Ali: That’s some heavy shit. But hey, we all do some bad shit in our lives right? It comes with the territory. But man, man, man—you just got me thinking about what that does to a thirteen-year-old, a thirteen-year-old kid, who finds her big sister overdosed. What that moment must do to somebody—how it affects the rest of their lives, you know. How it affects their ability to trust. Makes it hard for them to get close to people, relationships. Makes it hard for them to fall in love—living with the fear that at any moment, the rug could be ripped out from under them and they lose everything. Especially the people that they love. You ever think about that? Yeah, probably fucked up for life. But hey, you’re gonna have to make peace with that, just like you’re gonna have to make peace with the fact that you could be responsible for some shit like that and then get up in front of a whole group of people who are struggling with the same issues, and lie about being clean. You know what I’m saying?

Rue: No, I don’t know what you’re talking about [looks away].

Ali: Listen, young blood. You’re playing pool with Minnesota Fats.

Rue: Who is Minnesota Fats?

Ali: The greatest muthafuckin’ pool player that ever lived.

Rue: Ok.

Ali: I’m Ali. [gives Rue his card]. Lemme know when you wanna stop tryna kill yourself—and eat some pancakes.”[46]

Ali sees through Rue’s lies because he sees himself in Rue; Ali also understands the trauma and pain that Rue caused her sister and mother is reflective of the trauma that Ali caused his own wife and daughters. In a later meeting, Ali admits to Rue that decades ago, during his years of drug addiction when he was married, he got into a heated argument with his wife one day and physically beat her. His two daughters witnessed the beating and the youngest one, Marie, never forgave him. Ali lived several years in shame because he repeated a cycle of abuse that began with Ali’s own father beating his mother, which he considered an insidious action that he swore he would never copy.[47] Ali sees his chance at helping Rue as a way of redemption; Sam Levinson clarifies that “Ali is trying to make up for things that he’s lost and he’s trying to correct mistakes that he’s made in the past.”[48] Ali’s actor, Colman Domingo, notes that Ali considers Rue almost like a “surrogate daughter.”[49] Likewise, Rue considers Ali as a surrogate father. Ali’s mentorship of Rue and wise advice helps her to confront her issues of drug addiction (which began when she felt that she failed and betrayed her own biological father by taking his prescribed drugs for the cancer that slowly took his life). Ali helps Rue to realize that her disease of addiction paralleled her father’s physical disease of cancer, and that Rue should not continue to blame herself; a disease can be something that corrupts the body or the mind. Ali tells Rue,

“You didn’t come out of the womb an evil person. You, Rue, came out of the womb a beautiful baby girl, who unbeknownst to her, had a couple of wires crossed. So when you tried drugs for the first time it set something off in your brain that’s beyond your control. And it isn’t a question of willpower. It’s not about how strong you are—you’ve been fighting a losing game since the first day you got high. So you can destroy your life, you can fuck your little sister’s head up, you can abuse and torture and take for granted your mama and sit here and look me in the eye and say as calm and cool as can be, as cool as a cucumber, ‘Ima keep using drugs.’ Heh. That is the disease of addiction. It is a degenerative disease. It is incurable. It is deadly. And it is no different than cancer. And you got it. Why? Luck of the draw. But hey—but the hardest part of having the disease of addiction—aside from having the disease—is that no one in the world sees it as a disease. They see you as selfish—they see you as weak, they see you as cruel, they see you as destructive—they think, ‘Why should I give a fuck about her if she doesn’t give a fuck about herself or anybody else? Why does this girl deserve my time, my patience, my sympathy, right? If she wants to kill herself, let her.’”[50]

Ali tells Rue, “drugs change who you are as a person.”[51] The tight hold that drugs and mental illness have on Rue does not mean that she cannot control the trajectory of her own life. Rather, it means that Rue will often fail and make awful decisions under the influence of mania, depression, anxiety, or drugs, but the important aspect is that Rue at least tries to change and does not hold onto feelings of self-hate because of her failures or the pain her inevitable mistakes cause others. Although other people love and care for Rue (such as her sister Gia, her mother Leslie, her friend Fez, her oldest friend Lexi, her “new best friend” Jules, and her mentor Ali), she cannot progress or ultimately change until she finally frees herself from the burden of remorse and shame and reconciles that her past actions do not define her. Psychologist Dr. Christian Conte says of shame,

“There are levels of awareness, and there are levels of consciousness that we have. The lowest level of consciousness we have is something called shame. One of the reasons why shame is one of the lowest levels of consciousness is this: When people live in shame, they act out of shame…When people have said to themselves or believed that they were a no-good piece of nothing, then there is not much to stop them from continuing to hurt others. Why not? After all, they have nothing to lose.”[52]

Outside of the NA meeting where Ali confronts Rue for lying, there is a large cross that looms to the side of the building.[53] Right before Rue calls Ali, she gets into an argument with her drug dealer Fez because he has a change of conscience; he refuses to open the door for her or give her any more drugs. As Rue bangs on the door and insults him, a picture of Jesus[54] is shown on the side of Fez’s door. When Rue leaves and calls Ali for help, she stops in the middle of the alley where a horizontal ray of sunlight intersects a vertical line in the alley, forming a cross.[55] This imagery indicates that Rue’s relationship with Ali will help lead her on a path of redemption and that her sobriety will play an essential role on this path. Although Rue is an atheist and Ali is a Muslim,[56] the imagery of the cross and Jesus is largely a redemption story[57] and shows that Rue does have the power to change. Rue tells Ali that she feels the universe is punishing her for “being a piece of shit my entire life. Stealing from my mom, hitting her in the face. I picked up a piece of glass and I pointed it at my mom and I threatened to kill her. That is some unforgivable shit.”[58]  However, Ali clarifies to Rue that the only way she can reach sobriety is by understanding that she must accept forgiveness and shun shame, and he tells her,

“Maybe if I was some random ass classmate of yours with no life experience and I heard that you picked up a piece of glass and threatened your mama, I’d be like, ‘Ooh—that’s unforgivable.’ But the more you believe that, the sicker it makes you because every time you do something unforgivable, you think, why change? I’m just a piece of shit. I better keep going. What’s the difference now? Without realizing that forgiveness is the key to change…Your punishment, the sentence you give yourself is that you, Rue Bennett, are beyond forgiveness. That punishment is way too harsh and it’s also way too easy. It allows you to keep doing exactly what you’re doing without changing because you deserve it, there is no hope. You’re beyond forgiveness—so you may as well just fuck the fuck off forever and go die in the gutter because that’s what this girl—this piece of shit deserves. This is why the world keeps getting worse. People keep doing shit that we deem unforgivable and in return they decide there’s no reason to change. So now you’ve got a whole bunch of people running around who don’t give a fuck about redemption.”[59]

Rue’s last name, Bennett, means “blessed”.[60] Although Rue considers herself to be cursed with the strife that mental illness and drug addiction have plagued her with, she is also “blessed” with people who care about her and with a mentor who helps her gain some self-worth. Rue’s last name is antithetical to her first name and substantiates one of the myriad ways in which Rue is a paradoxical, self-contradictory figure. Rue’s biggest struggle and her worst lie is believing that she does not have the power to redeem herself. Ali enlightens Rue and guides her on her path to self-forgiveness and self-respect. As Ali tells Rue, her only path to find forgiveness starts with sobriety. Drugs are the antithesis of revolution; they have changed Rue for the worse and engendered in her a physical, mental, and moral decay. However, the “revolution”[61] that Ali tells Rue that she needs is a positive, transformative power in which she can finally believe that she is worthy of sobriety. Sobriety scares Rue because it causes her to see the world as the ugly place that it is. Ali tells Rue that “the beauty” of drug addiction is the lie that it tells you, “No matter what’s going on in the world, and no matter what’s going on in your life, everything is gonna be OK.[62] Ali has struggled with drug addiction, shame, and doing what he considered “unforgivable” things just like Rue; it is precisely Ali’s demons and imperfections that make him the perfect mentor for Rue. Through talking to and empathizing with someone who has done “more unforgivable”[63] things than she has and still overcome them through self-forgiveness and redemption, Rue can finally begin to accept the idea that she can also change like her mentor.

            Rue’s problems with drug addiction and mental illness have cost her unbearable pain and sadness, but she falsely believes that her issues and the decisions influenced by these issues define who she is as a person. Through her friendship with Ali, Rue begins to at least have the idea that she can be redeemed and ultimately reach sobriety. Rue’s journey to redemption starts with her eradication of self-doubt and self-hatred. Although she will always suffer from mental illness and drug addiction, and quite possibly relapse, Rue can look to the future with more hope that no matter what happens she must try to change and never give up on trying.

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[1] “Rue.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/rue. Accessed February 18, 2021.

[2] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.

[3] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.

[4] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 3. 2019.

[5] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 2. 2019.

[6] Ibid. E1.

[7] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.

[8] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.

[9] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[10] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.

[11] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.

[12] Bhandari, Smitha. “Bipolar Disorder & Suicide: Statistics, Signs, and Prevention.” WebMD, WebMD, 20 July 2020, www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/guide/bipolar-disorder-suicide: “Bipolar disorder seems to often run in families and there appears to be a genetic part to this mood disorder…Experts believe bipolar disorder is partly caused by an underlying problem with specific brain circuits and the functioning of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters.” Accessed February 18, 2021.

[13] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[14]  Ibid. Trouble.

[15] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 2. 2019.

[16] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 2. 2019.

[17] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.

[18] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 8. 2019.

[19] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.

[20] Bhandari, Smitha. “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Symptoms: 10 Signs You Have It.” WebMD, WebMD, 19 Feb. 2020, www.webmd.com/mental-health/understanding-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-symptoms. Accessed February 20, 2021.

[21] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.

[22] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019.

[23] Bhandari, Smitha. “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Symptoms: 10 Signs You Have It.” WebMD, WebMD, 19 Feb. 2020, www.webmd.com/mental-health/understanding-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-symptoms. Accessed February 18, 2021.

[24] Dunham, Lena; Rubinshteyn, Steve; Schoeneman, Deborah. Girls, Season 2. Episode 8. 2013.

[25] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 1. 2019

[26] Mondimore, Francis Mark. Bipolar Disorder: a Guide for You and Your Loved Ones. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2020.

[27] Chalasani, Radhika. “Famous People with Bipolar Disorder.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 11 Apr. 2018, www.cbsnews.com/pictures/famous-people-celebrities-bipolar/. Accessed February 18, 2021.

[28] Fu, Marilyn, et al. “Remembering Kurt Cobain: 25 Years Later.” Life Magazine, 29 Mar. 2019, pp. 11–11.

[29] Bhandari, Smitha. “Bipolar Disorder & Suicide: Statistics, Signs, and Prevention.” WebMD, WebMD, 20 July 2020, www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/guide/bipolar-disorder-suicide. Accessed February 20, 2021.

[30] Cerullo, Michael A, and Stephen M Strakowski. “The Prevalence and Significance of Substance Use Disorders in Bipolar Type I and II Disorder.” Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, BioMed Central, 1 Oct. 2007, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2094705/.

[31] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[32] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 2. 2019.

[33] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 2. 2019.

[34] Ibid. E2.

[35] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 3. 2019.

[36] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 4. 2019.

[37] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 4. 2019.

[38] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[39] Ibid. Trouble.

[40] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[41] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 7, 8. 2019.

[42] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[43] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 8. 2019.

[44] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[45] Ibid. Trouble.

[46] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 3. 2019.

[47] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[48] Ibid. Trouble.

[49] Ibid. Trouble.

[50] Ibid. Trouble.

[51] Ibid. Trouble.

[52] “Dr. Conte: Anger Management Technique: Getting Angry Without Knowing Why”. Conte, Christian.  YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIh_H98pNKY  

[53] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Season 1. Episode 3. 2019.

[54] Ibid. E3.

[55] Ibid. E3.

[56] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[57] “Cross.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/cross?s=t. Accessed February 20, 2021.

[58] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[59] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[60] “Bennett Family History.” Bennett Name Meaning & Bennett Family History at Ancestry.com®, www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=bennett. Accessed February 18, 2021.

[61] Levinson, Sam. Euphoria, Christmas Special. Episode: Trouble. 2020.

[62] Ibid. Trouble.

[63] Ibid. Trouble.

BY

                                                            C HUES

                                                            February 13, 2021      

In Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues”, the speaker describes a blues singer who does not simply play the blues, but he embodies the spirit, culture, and way of life associated with the blues. The poem substantiates that blues is not just a type of music, but blues is also the musical expression of the depression, strife, and suffering that African Americans had to endure throughout America. “The Weary Blues” shows that blues music originates from slavery and functions as an outlet for the torture and discrimination that African Americans underwent during the era of slavery and the Jim Crow era. Hughes uses onomatopoeia and alliteration throughout the poem to fully express the impact that blues has had on the singer.

In the poem, the speaker says that the blues singer “played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.”[1] Author Stephen J. Nicholson notes that blues music has its roots in ragtime and often has repeating lines:

“On February 1, 2003, Congress passed a Senate resolution that 2003 be named the “Year of the Blues”, commemorating its discovery by W.C. Handy. A ragtime bandleader, Handy was sitting on the train platform in Tutwiler, Mississippi, waiting to travel to his next engagement. Next to him, a sharecropper with a guitar, whom Handy identifies only as a “ragged Negro”, began strumming the twelve-bar tune chords and singing the three line structure that would come to be called the blues. In this version it’s an AAA structure, not the typical AAB pattern:

I’m goin’ where the Southern cross the Dog,

I’m goin’ where the Southern cross the Dog,

I’m goin’ where the Southern cross the Dog.

Though a simple line, it manages to portray the depth of the blues in its expression of restlessness.”[2]

Similarly, in “The Weary Blues”, Hughes uses the speaker of the poem to portray the blues singer as being restless and exasperated. The restlessness of the blues singer is implied by the word “Weary”[3] in the poem’s title, “The Weary Blues”. The word “weary” means “1. physically or mentally exhausted by hard work, exertion, strain, etc.; fatigued; tired: weary eyes; a weary brain. 2. characterized by or causing fatigue: a weary journey. 3. impatient or dissatisfied with something (often followed by of): weary of excuses. 4. characterized by or causing impatience or dissatisfaction; tedious; irksome: a weary wait.”[4] African Americans have had much to become weary of from the era of slavery and into Jim Crow (when the poem was published). White supremacists used both physical and sexual violence to intimidate and antagonize black Americans. After being physically beaten, tortured, and overworked during slavery, black men subsequently faced lynching and more physical pain during Jim Crow: “Across the South, Jim Crow and Judge Lynch were triumphant. Black people were subject to vicious but legal discrimination, voting restraints, violent customs, and state-sanctioned terror that negated their rights and blighted their hopes. A half century after the horrific war to end slavery, black people in the South were again living in near slavery.”[5] Author Danielle L. McGuire speaks of the torment that black women had to suffer during the era of slavery and Jim Crow: “The sexual exploitation of black women by white men had its roots in slavery and continued throughout the better part of the twentieth century…The rape of black women by white men continued, often unpunished, throughout the Jim Crow era.”[6] The deep suffering felt by African Americans and the weariness of slavery and Jim Crow is felt throughout the poem, and the repetition of several lines add to the sadness that the blues singer feels. This repetition is explained in detail in author Stephen J. Nicholson’s Getting the Blues, in which he writes,

“A technical pattern could be ascribed…the second line repeats the first, and the third is a response or an answer. Consider Blind Lemon Jefferson’s 1927 recording of an often-heard blues song:

                                    I’m sittin’ here thinkin’ will a matchbox hold my

  clothes

                                    I’m sittin’ here thinkin’ will a matchbox hold my

  Clothes

                                    Ain’t got so many matches, but I sure got a long way

                                                 to go.”[7]

In “The Weary Blues”, Hughes uses (a slight variation of) this technique when the singer first begins,

                                                  “Ain’t got nobody in all this world,

                                                   Ain’t got nobody but ma self.

                                                   I’s gwine to quit my frownin’

                                                   And put ma troubles on the shelf”[8]

The first and second lines repeat (with slight variation), “Ain’t got nobody”,[9] while the third and fourth lines both function as an answer to the singer’s loneliness and depression.

In Howlin Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning”, some of the lyrics read:

Ah oh, smokestack lightnin’

Shinin’ just like gold

Why don’t ya hear me cryin’?

A whoo hoo, whoo hoo, whoo

Whoa oh tell me, baby

What’s the matter with you?

Why don’t ya hear me cryin’?

Whoo hoo, whoo hoo, whooo

Whoa oh tell me, baby

Where did ya, stay last night?

A-why don’t ya hear me cryin’?

Whoo hoo, whoo hoo, whooo

Whoa oh, stop your train

Let her go for a ride

Why don’t ya hear me cryin’?

Whoo hoo, whoo hoo, whooo[10][11]

In the lyrics, much like in “The Weary Blues”, Howlin’ Wolf repeats certain lines and words several times: “Why don’t ya hear me cryin?” and a corresponding wail of “Whoo hoo”.[12] In “The Weary Blues”, the blues singer repeats the phrases “Ain’t got nobody in all this world”, “Got the Weary the Blues”, and “Can’t be satisfied”.[13] The speaker notes that even after “The singer stopped playing and went to bed”, that “The Weary Blues echoed through his head.”[14] Although the singer finishes his song and his performance, the blues sticks with him afterwards. The singer is not merely singing the blues, but he feels the blues incessantly. Indeed, Nicholson says of the blues, “This is the nonmusical approach to defining the blues, what The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians refers to as defining the blues as a “state of mind” …Blues is a feeling, and a particularly low, if not moribund, one.”[15]

Langston Hughes portrays the place that the singer performs the blues with lowly, unkempt, and almost ghastly terminology: “I heard a Negro play / Down on Lennox Avenue the other night / By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light”.[16] The blues player is not playing at an acclaimed and prestigious club in an area of town where whites mainly visit, but he is playing at a spot “in the heart of Harlem”[17] near “an old gas light.”[18] The piano is described as “poor” and the stool is described as “rickety.”[19] “Rickety means “likely to fall or collapse; shaky” or “old, dilapidated, or in disrepair.”[20] The singer is playing the blues in a place that would be typically associated with the music: “A humorous attempt at defining the blues establishes its criteria: traveling by Greyhound counts, but not traveling by plane; driving Chevys, Fords, broken-down trucks, and an occasional Cadillac qualifies, but driving Volvos and BMWs doesn’t. The blues may be found in such places as a jailhouse, morgue, room with an empty bed, back highway, or the bottom of an empty bottle, but not at Nordstrom’s, the mall, a gallery opening, or the golf course.”[21] The blues is not associated with ostentatious or glamorous places or things, rather it is associated with homely, disheveled, and faulty things.

Further, Hughes uses words that convey a theme of contrast between blackness and whiteness, which is common throughout many of his poems. “[T]he pale dull pallor of an old gas light” is antithetical to both the darkness of the night and the darkness of the singer, a black man described as having “ebony hands”.[22] “Pallor” is defined as “unusual or extreme paleness, as from fear, ill health, or death; wanness.”[23] The “pallor” not only contrasts with the blackness of the night and the singer, but it also connects with the blues singer’s desire to die, as he wails: “I ain’t happy no mo’ / And I wish that I had died.”[24] After he finishes playing, the singer “slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.”[25] The ghostly symbolism of the pallor emanating from the “old gas light”[26] reflects the speaker’s “state of mind”[27] or his constant feeling of blues. When the speaker talks about how the blues musician sings “far into the night”, he says that “The stars went out and so did the moon.”[28] The brightness and glow of the stars and the moon contrast the darkness of the night. Similarly, the blues singer’s “ebony hands” contrast the “ivory keys”[29] on the piano.

Hughes uses onomatopoeia[30] throughout the poem to show that the singer’s blues is an expression that extends into other objects or things and affects them. The blues are so powerful that they have an almost supernatural ability to transcend their limitations as a musical form. The speaker mentions of the blues musician, “With his ebony hands on each ivory key / He made that poor piano moan with melody.”[31] The singer feels pain and suffering because of having the blues, but as he plays the piano, this same pain is then transferred onto the piano. “Moan” means “a prolonged, low, inarticulate sound uttered from or as if from physical or mental suffering.”[32] The line is repeated later in the poem, “I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan”;[33] it is as if the “Negro” and the piano are one and the same. Hughes uses onomatopoeia again with the lines, “Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor”[34] to describe the blues singer. Also, the line uses alliteration[35] and repeats the sounds of “t” and “f”. Hughes uses alliteration in several other lines, such as “Droning a drowsy syncopated tune”[36] with an emphasis on “d”, “s”, and “t” sounds. The line “He made that poor piano moan with melody”[37] also uses alliteration with the repetition of “m” and “p” sounds. “The Weary Blues” is a poem that reveals the blues to be beyond any musical genre. The blues are a cultural and social journey that African Americans experienced and then put into musical expression. Langston Hughes uses several techniques such as alliteration and onomatopoeia to show the extensive power and rhythmic structure of the blues.

---

[1] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. P 912.

[2] Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation. Stephen J. Nichols · 2008.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Getting_the_Blues/GIWoxdMdiHwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=blues+music&printsec=frontcover. P 30-31.  

[3] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. P 912.

[4] Weary. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/weary?s=t. Accessed February 13, 2021.

[5] Moanin’ at Midnight: The Life and Times of Howlin’ Wolf. James Segrest, ‎Mark Hoffman · 2012. Chapter 1: Poor Boy, p 2. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Moanin_at_Midnight/BSZTfrr2YkEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=howlin+wolf+smokestack+lightning&printsec=frontcover

[6] Danielle L. McGuire. At the Dark End of the Street” Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. Xviii. Vintage Books. Random House, Inc. New York. 2010. First Vintage Books Ed., 2011. ISBN: 978-0-307-38924-4.

[7] Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation. Stephen J. Nichols · 2008. P 23. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Getting_the_Blues/GIWoxdMdiHwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=blues+music&printsec=frontcover .  

[8] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. P 912.

[9] Ibid.

[10] The Riffology. Wise Publications. Smokestack Lightning, Howlin’ Wolf. The Howlin Wolf, Album 1969. Chess Records. Original: 1950s.  June 17, 2010. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Riffology/bU5SDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=howlin+wolf+smokestack+lightning&pg=PT113&printsec=frontcover.

[11] https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Howlin-Wolf/Smokestack-Lightning. Lyrics written and recorded by Burnett, Chester (aka Howlin’ Wolf).

[12] Ibid.

[13] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. 912.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation. Stephen J. Nichols · 2008 P 23. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Getting_the_Blues/GIWoxdMdiHwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=blues+music&printsec=frontcover . P 22.

[16] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. 912.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Rickety. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/rickety?s=t. Accessed February 13, 2021.

[21] Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation. Stephen J. Nichols · 2008 P 23. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Getting_the_Blues/GIWoxdMdiHwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=blues+music&printsec=frontcover . P 22.

[22] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. 912.

[23] Pallor. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/pallor?s=t. Accessed February 13, 2021.

[24] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. 912.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation. Stephen J. Nichols · 2008 P 23. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Getting_the_Blues/GIWoxdMdiHwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=blues+music&printsec=frontcover . P 22.

[28] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. 912.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Onomatopoeia:  1. the formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent. 2. a word so formed. 3. the use of imitative and naturally suggestive words for rhetorical, dramatic, or poetic effect. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/onomatopoeia#. Accessed February 13, 2021.

[31] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. 912.

[32] Moan. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/moan?s=t. Accessed February 13, 2021.

[33] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. 912.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Alliteration: the commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group (consonantal alliteration ), as in from stem to stern, or with a vowel sound that may differ from syllable to syllable (vocalic alliteration ), as in each to all. Compare consonance (def. 4a).

the commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same letter, as in apt alliteration’s artful aid. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/alliteration?s=t. Accessed February 13, 2021.

[36] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues. 1926. 912.

[37] Ibid.

  BY

C HUES

            February 8, 2021

In “Dream Variations”, the speaker uses antithetical words to describe and contrast the daytime with the night, but also shows how both the night and the day are quintessential to one another. The day and night are two parts of one big cycle that endlessly repeat. These themes of day and night also extend to contrasting imagery of blackness and whiteness and the usage of syntax.[1]

            The title of the poem, “Dream Variations” provides insight into the cyclical aspects of the poem. The word “Variation” means “a different form of something”.[2] In the poem, although night is shown to be opposite of day, the speaker also implies that night and day are yin and yang or two sides of the same coin. In the first stanza, the speaker initially discusses the idea of dancing in the day, and then ends the stanza with resting at night. The first two lines of the first stanza read, “To fling my arms wide / In some place of the sun”, and the last three lines of the first stanza say, “While night comes on gently / Dark like me—That is my dream!”[3] As soon as the second stanza begins, the beginning line from the first stanza is repeated at the very start of the second stanza: “To fling my arms wide”.[4] The lines are repeated because it is the start of a new day; night is simply a different form of day; night and day form a cycle that forever repeats. Night cannot exist without day, and day cannot exist without night. Thus, immediately after night “comes on gently”[5] in the first stanza, day begins with vigor in the second stanza. The first line from the initial stanza recurs as the first line in the following stanza because the “variations”[6] are not only the slight variations between the lines in the two stanzas, but the “variations” are also within the stanzas themselves. The variations are between night and day and how day shifts into night. This is further substantiated as the last lines in the second stanza read, “Night coming tenderly / Black like me.”[7] “Variation” can also mean “amount, rate, extent, or degree of change: a temperature variation of 40 [degrees] in a particular climate”.[8] In the poem, there is a variation as day becomes night; there is a change in the weather and degrees. The warmth of the sun contrasts the “cool evening”[9] that gradually transforms into night. Another definition of variations is “a solo dance”;[10] in the poem the speaker imagines dancing alone in the day: “To whirl and to dance / till the white day is done”.[11] A “variation” of these lines, “Dance! Whirl! Whirl!” appear in the second stanza. The origin of the word whirl is: “1250–1300; Middle English whirlen<Old Norse hvirfla to whirl, akin to Old English hwyrflung turning, revolving, hwyrfel circuit; see whorl”.[12] Synonyms for whirl include “revolve, twirl, wheel, spin, revolution”;[13] the speaker chooses to use the word “whirl”[14] because it supports the theme of the variations and cycles between night and day. Just as the Earth undergoes revolutions and turns day into night as it revolves around the Sun,[15] the speaker also spins in harmony and rhythm[16] with the day as it shifts into night.

            The speaker uses opposing imagery from the day and night between the two stanzas. In the first lines of both stanzas, the speaker says, “To fling my arms wide”.[17] The word “fling” means “to throw, cast, or hurl with force or violence” or “to move (oneself) violently with impatience, contempt, or the like”;[18] these lines that start the day oppose the speaker’s thoughts of being able to “rest at cool evening”.[19] “Fling” can also mean “to involve oneself vigorously in an undertaking”;[20] the speaker is vividly and rigorously dancing and whirling the entire day. The speaker also describes the day as “quick”;[21] the quickness of the day is further supported by the word “fling”, since “fling” can mean “to move, do, or say something quickly”.[22]  Also, the speaker describes the day as “white” in the first stanza; this is antithetical to night being described as “Dark” and “Black”.[23]  Further, the speaker notes that the night is “Dark like me” and “Black like me”.[24] The speaker compares the blackness or darkness of the night with the concept of blackness as a racial identity. Although blackness or darkness has often been mischaracterized and wrongfully demonized throughout the world (and especially the United States), here Langston Hughes fully embraces blackness as a positive and peaceful presence through the words of the speaker. Hughes also could be using the words of the speaker to acknowledge both the white and black ancestry in his family and within the families of most African Americans in general,[25][26] and how whiteness and blackness are often contradicted but can actually co-exist within one entity.

            Hughes uses alliteration[27] in the poem to give it a rhythm and flow that befits the dance of the day. He uses alliteration in the first stanza with the lines, “In some place of the sun”,[28] with a repetition of the word s, and the s-sounding letter “c” in the word place. Hughes uses alliteration again when he has the speaker say, “To whirl and to dance / Till the white day is done”.[29] There is a nearly incessant repetition of the letters “t” and “d” in the two lines. This alliteration repeats in the second stanza with the lines describing the day, “In the face of the sun / Dance! Whirl! Whirl! / Till the quick day is done.”[30] There is a repetition of words starting with “t”, “d” and “w”. When the lines transition into description of night, Hughes continues to use alliteration, but he decreases the pace and usage of it. He uses some alliteration or repetition of letters and sounds in the lines describing the night: “Beneath a tall tree”, “Dark like me—/That is my dream!”, “A tall, slim tree… / Night coming tenderly / Black like me.”[31] The letters “t”, “d”, and “m” repeat in the lines. The slight decrease in alliteration from night and day is done to show the contrast between the quickness of the day and the more relaxing pace of the night. Further, Hughes uses ellipsis[32] in a couple of the lines describing the transition into night to show that things are slowing down from the day: “Rest at pale evening… / A tall slim tree…”[33] These lines smoothly transition into “Night coming tenderly”[34] because the usage of the ellipsis grants some distance between words and sets a steady, easy pace. In contrast, exclamation marks are used repeatedly when describing how the speaker acts during the day: “Dance! Whirl! Whirl! / Till the quick day is done.”[35] Note the constant usage of prepositions[36] in the poem and the lack of subject usage. The poem starts with a preposition, “To fling my arms wide”.[37] The first four lines of the first stanza all start with prepositions: “To”, “In”, “To”, and “Till” (Until)”.[38]  The usage of prepositions indicate that the speaker is dreaming or musing about what he will do instead of doing it in the moment. The speaker does not say, “I fling my arms wide” or “I whirl and dance”; they say, “To fling my arms wide” and “To whirl and to dance.”[39] The lack of a subject (and that there is no complete sentence in the entire poem)[40][41] further implies that the speaker is dreaming and imagining what he will do or wants to do during the day and night.            

Ultimately, “Dream Variations” is an embrace and celebration of blackness, and the recognition that seemingly contrasting things (such as day and night or black and white) can coexist peacefully. “Dream Variations” uses themes of repetition throughout (alliteration, punctuation, sentence structure, and similar definitions of words) to convey the theme of unity and oneness between aspects of life that seem quite different. Thus, Hughes composes both stanzas and even several lines within the stanzas that are opposite, yet also alike.

---

[1] Dictionary.com. Syntax: Linguistics.

the study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language.

the study of the patterns of formation of sentences and phrases from words. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/syntax?s=t . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[2] Dictionary.com. Variation. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/variation . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[3]  The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Dictionary.com. Variation. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/variation . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[9] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[10] Dictionary.com. Variation. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/variation . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[11] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[12] Dicitionary.com. Whirl. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/whirl?s=t . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Dicitionary.com. Whirl. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/whirl?s=t . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[15] Dictionary.com. Revolution. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/revolution?s=t. Accessed February 8, 2021.

[16] Dictionary.com. Variation. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/variation . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[17] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[18] Dictionary.com. Fling. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/fling# . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[19] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[20] Dictionary.com. Fling. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/fling# . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[21] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[22] Dictionary.com. Fling. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/fling# . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[23] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond Harlem ; a Biography. 1983. 1992. Faith Berry. Carol Publishing Group. A Citadel Press Book. Chapter 1, p 1-2.  

[26] The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States.

Katarzyna Bryc, Eric Y. Durand, J. Michael Macpherson, David Reich, and Joanna L. Mountain. Am J Hum Genet. 2015 Jan 8; 96(1): 37–53. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.11.010. PMCID: PMC4289685. PMID: 25529636. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4289685/ .

[27] Dictionary.com. Alliteration: the commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same letter, as in apt alliteration’s artful aid.

the commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group (consonantal alliteration ), as in from stem to stern, or with a vowel sound that may differ from syllable to syllable (vocalic alliteration ), as in each to all. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/alliteration# . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[28] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Dictionary.com. Ellipsis: Printing. a mark or marks as ——, …, or * * *, to indicate an omission or suppression of letters or words. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ellipsis?s=t . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[33] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Dictionary.com. Preposition: any member of a class of words found in many languages that are used before nouns, pronouns, or other substantives to form phrases functioning as modifiers of verbs, nouns, or adjectives, and that typically express a spatial, temporal, or other relationship, as in, on, by, to, since.  https://www.dictionary.com/browse/preposition?s=t . Accessed February 8, 2021.

[37] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[38] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Dictionary.com. Subject: Grammar. (in English and many other languages) a syntactic unit that functions as one of the two main constituents of a simple sentence, the other being the predicate, and that consists of a noun, noun phrase, or noun substitute which often refers to the one performing the action or being in the state expressed by the predicate, as He in He gave notice. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/subject?s=t. February 8, 2021.

[41] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Dream Variations. 1926. P 914.