EUPHORIA CHARACTER ANALYSIS RUE: SHAME AND REDEMPTION
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.
[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.
RUE: SHAME AND REDEMPTION (EUPHORIA CHARACTER ESSAY)
THE WEARY BLUES: ECHOES OF STRIFE
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.
[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.
[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.
“DREAM VARIATIONS: EMBRACE OF BLACKNESS”
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.
NAMES
BY C HUES
1/28/21
Chastity had many lovers But many did not love her And Faith became an atheist She knew of none above her Hope took hold of politics She grabbed it by the throat When black and brown – they needed help She blocked them from the vote But Melody she sang a song A ballad all enjoyed Yet still her ears had stirred her wrong And she heard but a void… Victor failed at everything There was no job he kept He gambled all his savings But couldn’t win a bet Christian was a Satanist Way into heavy metal His dad sent him to Catholic school Convinced he was the Devil Tyrone was a white man He came from County Down His grandson Scott was black Scott’s father liked them brown So now you’ve seen the danger That comes with choosing names But what is even stranger Is how they’re rarely changed
CROSS: THE LIMINAL STATE
BY C HUES
1/27/2021
In “Cross”, Hughes uses the myriad meanings for the word “cross” to convey several different messages to the reader. The poem shows the difficulty of being a mixed-race person born to a black mother and a white father, and how the identity of this person causes them existential torment and angst. Hughes shows that being the product of black and white parentage raises more questions for the child of those parents than answers.
The speaker mentions that “My old man’s a white old man / And my old mother’s black”[1]. The speaker is mixed or mulatto, which substantiates that the speaker is a Cross: “a person or thing that is intermediate in character between two others”.[2] “Cross” can mean “to interbreed”[3]; the speaker is the product of two people in society who belong to antithetical cultures and places in the racial caste system. Further, the word “shack” supports this definition of the word “cross” that is used in the poem regarding interracial sex, as shack can mean “to have illicit sexual relations”.[4] Despite laws against interracial relationships,[5] it was commonplace for slave owners to rape their slaves and have mixed race or mulatto children.[6] In fact, African Americans today descend from such relationships during slavery and have “excess European male and West African female ancestry”;[7] genetic DNA studies reveal that “African Americans in the US typically carry segments of DNA shaped by contributions from peoples of Europe, Africa, and the Americas.”[8] The “excess European male” ancestry further confirms the regularity in which white men fathered children with black slave women; the nature of these relationships were specifically to “shack” up. A “shack” can also mean “a rough cabin; shanty”;[9] as the speaker mentions that their “ma died in a shack.”[10] Perhaps the poem is also influenced by Langston Hughes’ own ancestry:
“James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902, the second son of James Nathaniel Hughes and Carrie Mercer Langston Hughes…Both of James Nathaniel Hughes’ male grandparents were white, his female grandparents black. On the paternal side, he was descended from Sam Clay, a whiskey distiller of Scottish origin who lived in Henry County, Kentucky, and on the maternal side from Silas Cushenberry, a Jewish slave trader from Clark County, Kentucky. Langston’s mother, who preferred to be called Carolyn, had been born on January 1873 on a farm near Lawrence, Kansas. Her paternal grandfather was Ralph Quarles, a wealthy Louisiana County, Virginia, planter, who had attained the rank of Captain in the Revolutionary War. Her grandmother, Lucy Langston, was his half-Indian, half-Negro housekeeper. Carrie’s father, Charles Howard Langston, was the second of three sons born to Ralph and Lucy. The Louisiana County court record shows that in 1806 Quarles declared Lucy and her heirs, including a daughter Maria, free and “clear of the claims of all persons whatsoever.” The three sons grew up on their father’s Virginia plantation, and when he died in 1834—the year of Lucy’s death also—his will provided for their education and, upon reaching the age of twenty-one, financial independence.”[11]
Hughes’ ancestry is reflective of the speaker’s heritage, with paternal European and maternal African ancestry. Although the speaker questions where they’ll die because they are “neither white nor black”,[12] mulatto children were usually considered by society to be closer to black than white when the conditions were that the father was white and the mother was a black slave (the typical case). This is substantiated as all of Langston Hughes’ mulatto grandparents were still enslaved when they were born. However, Hughes’ maternal great-grandfather did eventually free his children upon his death and provided for their education. That slave owners sometimes did these acts of kindness does not suggest that they are somehow redeemed of their evil, corrupt, and licentious actions towards slave women or their general cruelty. Still, the occasional act of freeing the children does show that sometimes being mulatto would place a person in an incredibly unique position in society. They would much more often have the opportunity of being freed due to familial connections. Thus, the speaker’s question of where they will die is an existential one that also reflects the nature of who exactly they are in society—are they slave or free, white or black, and can they become rich or will they stay poor? The answer is usually that they are slaves, black, and poor, yet being mulatto also means that these things can change. Some mulatto people were able to pass for white and ascend to places in white society that no darker skinned black person could ever hope to attain. As Allyson Hobbs notes in A Chosen Exile, “Passing illuminates the ways that African American identities function as an intangible space of imagination or a set of symbols to which people feel powerful attachments.”[13] Thus, even if the speaker chose to pass for white to make life substantially easier, they would be abandoning their black identity, culture, and people. They find themselves in an impossible position. Langston Hughes similarly found himself conflicted with his father when he chose to fully embrace his blackness and celebrate black pride; he wrote the poem “Passing”, which criticizes those who rejected their blackness for what he considered material wealth and social convenience.[14]
One of the definitions for the word “Cross” is “a structure or monument in the form of a cross, set up for prayer, as a memorial, etc.”[15] In the poem, the speaker talks about the death of both their black mother and their white father: “My old man died in a fine big house” and “My ma died in a shack”.[16] Here, “cross” can refer to a memorial or structure that is present on the graves of the parents when they die. Further, “cross” particularly carries a religious meaning, and it can also mean “the crucifixion of Jesus as the culmination of His redemptive mission”;[17] the speaker shows in the second stanza that he is musing about death and the afterlife: “If I ever cursed my black old mother / And wished she were in hell, / I’m sorry for that evil wish / And now I wish her well.”[18] Cross also means “to move, pass, or extend from one side or place to another”;[19] death is the ultimate form of “crossing over”[20] according to Christianity and many religions. The speaker believes that beyond death there is an afterlife, and they express regret for cursing their father and wishing that their mother was in hell. This regret is indicated to have come suddenly because the speaker’s parents have both died, and now the speaker is closer to death as they have become older. When the speaker was younger, it did not trouble them to curse and condemn their parents to hell because of the troubled circumstance of being mulatto in a racist, slave owning society. The speaker feels “cross”, which means “angry and annoyed”[21] at the life they feel thrusted into by their parents, and they are forever stuck. However, as they grew in age and both their parents died, they began to question death. The speaker’s expression for sorrow and regret does not emanate from a genuine feeling of remorse; rather the speaker seems to be motivated by the fear of their own mortality and the realization that they will die just like both of their parents. However, even death cannot truly connect or empathize the speaker with his parents because they end the poem with the lines, “I wonder where I’m gonna die / Being neither white nor black?”[22] Even though death would seem like the one thing that would unify the speaker with his mother and father because everyone experiences it or will experience it, the liminality of being a mixed race slave still separates the speaker from both parents.
Ultimately, the poem “Cross” offers no answers for the speaker of the poem, but it does show that being a mixed-race person in society (in particular American society) leaves one feeling like they do not belong. The burden of being mulatto is their “cross”[23] to bear. The feeling of anguish and strife of not belonging to a particular group is only supplemented by the fear of choosing sides (or the fear that one cannot even choose a side). Although society would usually treat mulatto slaves as black, their appearance and ancestral connections sometimes offered them the opportunity to cross[24] over into white society. However, when doing so, mulatto people risked abandoning their family and culture, leaving many plagued by their decision.
[1] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Cross. p 914. 1926.
[2] Cross. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cross?s=t . Accessed January 27, 2021.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Shack. Dictionary.com https://www.dictionary.com/browse/shack?s=t. Accessed January 27, 2021.
[5] The Rape of Recy Taylor. Directed by Nancy Buirski. Produced by Nancy Buirski, Claire L. Chandler, Beth Hubbard, Susan Margolin. Written by Nancy Buirski. December 8, 2017 (Limited release). March 20, 2018 (Streaming). https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_rape_of_recy_taylor
[6] Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Root. “Exactly How “Black” is Black America. February 11, 2013. 12:32 A.M. Accessed January 27, 2021. https://www.theroot.com/exactly-how-black-is-black-america-1790895185 .
[7] Genome-wide patterns of population structure and admixture in West Africans and African Americans
Katarzyna Bryc, Adam Auton, Matthew R. Nelson, Jorge R. Oksenberg, Stephen L. Hauser, Scott Williams, Alain Froment, Jean-Marie Bodo, Charles Wambebe, Sarah A. Tishkoff, and Carlos D. Bustamante. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Jan 12; 107(2): 786–791.Published online 2009 Dec 22. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0909559107
PMCID: PMC2818934. PMID: 20080753. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2818934/ .
[8] 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/ .
[9] Shack. Dictionary.com.
[10]The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Cross. p 914. 1926.
[11] Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond Harlem ; a Biography. 1983. 1992. Faith Berry. Carol Publishing Group. A Citadel Press Book. Chapter 1, p 1-2.
[12] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Cross. p 914. 1926.
[13] A Chosen Exile. Allyson Hobbs. 2014. Harvard University Press. P 16. https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Chosen_Exile/HaOmBAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=slaves%20passed%20for%20white
[14] A Chosen Exile. Allyson Hobbs. 2014. Harvard University Press. P211-212, 214. https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Chosen_Exile/HaOmBAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=langston%20hughes
[15] Cross. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cross?s=t . Accessed January 27, 2021.
[16] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Cross. p 914. 1926.
[17] Cross. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cross?s=t . Accessed January 27, 2021.
[18] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Cross. p 914. 1926.
[19] Cross. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cross?s=t . Accessed January 27, 2021.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, Cross. p 914. 1926.
[23] Cross: “Any misfortune, trouble”. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cross?s=t .
[24] Cross: “to move, pass, or extend from one side to the other”. Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cross?s=t .
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”: Connection and Unity
BY C HUES
1/22/2021
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is a poem by Langston Hughes which reveals themes of Pan-Africanism and Double Consciousness, and is influenced by the works, writings, and speeches of W.E.B. Dubois. The poem heavily uses biblical imagery and language to convey its message about the connection between African Americans to America and Africa. The four rivers mentioned in the poem show an epic journey of African Americans and how history has forever connected black Americans to their roots.
Langston Hughes’ poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (published in 1926)[1] is dedicated to W.E.B. Dubois.[2] Why does Hughes dedicate this poem to Dubois? W.E.B Dubois was an African American “historian, educator, and activist…in later life became increasingly interested in Pan-Africanism.”[3] Pan-Africanism is defined as “the idea or advocacy of a political alliance or union of all the African nations.”[4] However, DuBois’ beliefs were initially in “a leadership of those referred to as the ‘Talented Tenth’, those who had received the benefit of Higher Education,” and Dubois further expressed that “The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.”[5] However, his viewpoint was widely criticized for its elitism, and DuBois changed his views by 1915: “The Pan-African Movement when it comes will not, however, be merely a narrow racial propaganda. Already the more far-seeing Negroes sense the coming unities: a unity of the working classes everywhere, a unity of coloured races, a new unity of men.”[6] This unity suggests not merely “a political alliance or union of all the African nations”,[7] but more so a connection between African Americans and other people of African descent around the world. Pan-Africanism, as Dubois implies, is about the African diaspora and the connection that black people from everywhere share and use to strengthen themselves politically, socially, and economically. Pan-Africanism suggests a connection not only to sub-Saharan Africa, but to all of Africa. In “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, Hughes delves into Pan-Africanism. The speaker of the poem says, “I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.”[8] The Nile river appears often in the Old Testament in the Bible; it holds a special connection to African Americans because of its role in the Book of Exodus.[9] Many descendants of the African diaspora and Pan-Africanists have found solace and connection with the story of Exodus because of its slave narrative; Bob Marley, a Jamaican Pan-Africanist singer and songwriter, composed a song “Exodus”, which related the struggle of black people to escape from slavery with that of the biblical tale of the Israelites escaping from slavery in Egypt: “Exodus refers to a general [skill at] moving away from incoming disasters, governed by passovers; and preparing for each change in due season.”[10] Similarly, Hughes invokes the Nile to connect to the Exodus that African Americans undertook by overcoming slavery, leading to a change and a new season. This change (and connection between Africa and America for African Americans) is substantiated by the comparison of the Nile (a river in Africa)[11] to the Mississippi River (in America, which runs through New Orleans): “Abraham Lincoln’s decision to end slavery was partly inspired” by his visits to New Orleans in 1829 and 1831, a time in which “New Orleans was also a major center of the domestic slave trade.”[12][13] In the poem, the speaker says that he has seen the Mississippi River’s “muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.” This line corroborates the “change due season”[14] that an Exodus engenders. In Exodus 7: 17-18, Moses (through God) turns the Nile river from water into blood when confronting Pharaoh: “With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood.”[15] This verse also correlates to the lines in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, which read “I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.”[16] In Exodus 7:14-15, “the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. Confront him on the bank of the Nile”.[17] The speaker of the poem connects the Nile and the Mississippi to himself as a “Negro” because both rivers are tied to the legacy of slavery; both rivers represent the “Double Consciousness” of being both African and American.[18] As W.E.B. DuBois notes, “One ever feels his twoness,-an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”[19]
The speaker’s mention of the Euphrates River suggests the African American connection to the Earth’s beginnings; the Euphrates is not an African river or an American river but the speaker discusses it because of its biblical significance in the allegory or parable of Adam and Eve. The Euphrates River is mentioned in Genesis 2:13-15, when God speaks to Adam, “13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.[a] 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”[20] The speaker says, “I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.”[21] “Dawn” can mean “The first appearance of daylight” or also generally refer to “the beginning or rise of anything; advent.” The lines about the Euphrates directly contrast with the lines, “I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down / to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden / in the sunset.”[22] The lines about the Euphrates start off the poem, and the lines about the Mississippi end the poem. This is significant because it signifies the journey of African Americans from the beginning of time to the end of slavery. Also, the lines about the Euphrates mentions “dawns”, but the lines about the Mississippi talk of “sunsets”. The word “sunset” is an antonym for dawn[23] and the speaker uses their antithetical meanings to convey the full journey of African Americans (at the time of the poem’s publication).
The speakers says, “I built my hut near the Congo”;[24] the Congo River is “a river in Central Africa”.[25] It is partially located in what is now The Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire.[26] Most African Americans can trace some of their ancestry to the Congo; slaves were regularly stolen from the Congo and other nearby West and Central African regions.[27] Through the Congo to the Mississippi, the speaker establishes “genetic links between individuals in the Americas and populations across Atlantic Africa, yielding a more comprehensive understanding of the African roots of peoples of the Americas.”[28] The speaker replies that the Congo “lulled [him] to sleep”;[29] the word lull means “to put to sleep or rest by soothing means.”[30] The speaker denotes a time before slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, prior to the slave traders’ invasion of West Africa and the start of their evil, torturous methods. This line shows that the history of African Americans runs deeper than their time in America and recalls a time of solace and peace. The line about the Congo relates to the line mentioning the Euphrates because they both speak of beginnings; the Congo represents the origin of many ancestors of African Americans, and the Euphrates represents the origin story of Adam and Eve.
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is a powerful poem that links African Americans to Africa and embraces W.E.B. DuBois’ vision of African unity and interconnectedness. Hughes uses the four rivers in the poem as symbols for connection and togetherness. Just as the rivers have a deep history that relates or is ingrained in African American history and culture, the speaker is part of a deep culture that connects him to events and time periods beyond his years. Ultimately, the poem signifies the historical strife and struggles of African Americans, along with the victories for justice that they have gained throughout time.
[1] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. P 913.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Dictionary.com. Pan-Africanism. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/pan-africanism?s=t . Accessed January 22, 2021.
[5] Pan-Africanism: A History. 2018. Hakim Adi. Chapter 3 p 1. Bloomsbury Publishing. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Pan_Africanism/mQ5kDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=bob+marley+pan+africanism&printsec=frontcover.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Dictionary.com. Pan-Africanism. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/pan-africanism?s=t . Accessed January 22, 2021.
[8] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[9] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%207%3A16%2D18&version=NIV. Biblegateway.com Exodus 7:17-18. NIV.
[10] Vivien Goldman. The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Album of the Century. 2007. Crown Publishing. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Book_of_Exodus/d2qJ2HfGv24C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=exodus. P 136.
[11]Dictionary.com. Nile. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nile?s=t . Accessed January 22, 2021.
[12] The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. Eric Foner. 2011. P 10. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Fiery_Trial_Abraham_Lincoln_and_Amer/4b8m7cv3wTIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Abraham+Lincoln+New+Orleans+slavery&pg=PA10&printsec=frontcover
[13] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[14] Vivien Goldman. The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Album of the Century. 2007. Crown Publishing. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Book_of_Exodus/d2qJ2HfGv24C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=exodus. P 136.
[15] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%207%3A16%2D18&version=NIV. Biblegateway.com Exodus 7:17-18. NIV.
[16] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[17] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%207%3A14%2D16&version=NIV. Biblegateway.com
Exodus 7:14-15. NIV.
[18] W.E.B. DuBois. The Souls of Black Folks. 2020. Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Souls_of_Black_Folk/nv7oDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=double%20consciousness.
[19] Ibid.
[20] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%202%3A13%2D15&version=NIV. Biblegateway.com. Genesis 2:13-15. NIV.
[21] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Dictionary.com. Dawn. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dawn?s=t.
[24] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[25] Dictionary.com. Congo. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/congo?s=t. Accessed January 22, 2021.
[26] Ibid.
[27] ARTICLE| VOLUME 107, ISSUE 2, P265-277, AUGUST 06, 2020. Genetic Consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas. Steven J. Micheletti, Kasia Bryc, Samantha G. Ancona Esselmann, 23andMe Research Team,
Sandra Beleza, Joanna L. Mountain. Published:July 23, 2020 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2020.06.012. https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(20)30200-7 .
[28] Ibid.
[29] The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. 2005. Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. 1926. P 913.
[30] Dictionary.com. Lull. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lull#. Accessed January 22, 2021.
MARTIN WAS A KING
MARTIN WAS A KING, NOT A JUDGE
BY C HUES
PUBLISHED 1/18/21
As we arrive on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year, there seems to be an increasing confusion in much of the American consciousness as to who Martin Luther King, Jr. was. After a mob of terrorists invaded the Capitol building, vandalized government property, and physically assaulted and tortured several police officers, we now enter a day celebrating a man who stood for the antithesis of this assault. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a nonviolent Civil Rights leader, activist, and protester, but his image and legacy has been distorted and warped into that of the judge and jury of black America. When George Floyd was murdered by police, subsequent protests began throughout the country in response. Afterwards, some white Americans questioned whether Dr. King would support a protest that involved rioting (even though most protesters were peaceful).[1] Some African Americans have also invoked the name of Dr. King whenever black Americans believe that other black people behave in a disgraceful manner.
In James Forman, Jr.’s Locking Up Our Own, he discusses how an African American judge sentenced a black youth in Washington, DC (given the alias Brandon in the book to protect his identity) in 1995 to six months in juvenile detention for marijuana possession and firearm possession (his first arrest), and used Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy to castigate and patronize the boy: “[Y]ou can go to school, study hard, live your dreams. It isn’t easy—I know that. But it is possible. And people fought, struggled, and died for that possibility. Dr. King died for that, son.[2] The truth is that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s primary criticism was of the bigotry of white supremacists and the passivity and silence of white liberals.[3] Those same white people who smugly asked whether King would approve of African Americans rioting over police murders of black and brown people were conveniently silent when white terrorists flooded the Capitol. Whereas Black Lives Matter protests have been virtually universally peaceful, “protests” by white supremacists usually transform into violent and deadly affairs. Ironically, years after Brandon’s case, many of the white supremacists and terrorists who led an insurrection and assault against the Capitol faced less prison time than a black teenager who was arrested for marijuana and handgun possession.[4] A nonviolent drug and gun charge destroyed a black teenager’s life in Washington, DC, yet many of the white supremacists and terrorists who invaded Washington, DC and assaulted police faced less time than a minor who was charged with a first time nonviolent offense.[5] Martin Luther King Jr.’s criticisms were never historically directed toward the “Brandons” of America; instead they had always been directed to white supremacists; if King were alive today Donald Trump would most likely be a frequent target of said criticism. Trump provoked and instigated the assault on the Capitol, which is the latest attack in a series of hateful, racist, and violent incidents that Trump has engendered through his inane fabrications and copious, unsubstantiated prevarications (the most recent rooted out of baseless allegations of election fraud).[6] In King’s “A Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, the reverend mentions,
“[W]hen you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policeman curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity…then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleekness of corroding despair.”[7]
As one can see by King’s remarks, he vehemently opposed police brutality and violence; he would not be critical of Black Lives Matter protesters who also adamantly oppose police brutality. King would be dissatisfied with the racism and violence that is still carried out by some cops today, and he would be disgusted with President Trump and Bill Barr[8] ordering police to attack peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters for a photo op:
“When Attorney General William P. Barr strode out of the White House gates for a personal inspection early Monday evening, he discovered that protesters were still on the northern edge of the square. For the president to make it to St. John’s Church, they would have to be cleared out. Mr. Barr gave the order to disperse them. What ensued was a burst of violence unlike any seen in the shadow of the White House in generations. As he prepared for his surprise march to the church, Mr. Trump first went before cameras in the Rose Garden to declare himself “your president of law and order” but also “an ally of all peaceful protesters,” even as peaceful protesters just a block away and clergy members on the church patio were routed by smoke and flash grenades and some form of chemical spray deployed by shield-bearing riot officers and mounted police.”[9]
Trump surely and further proved himself the “Law and Order” candidate when he orchestrated a terrorist attack on the Capitol, leading his own supporters to attack police. Indeed, Trump frequently boasts that he is both a man of “Law and Order” and a deeply religious man, despite being accused of rape by numerous women and also admitting on tape about the copious rape and sexual assault that he has committed.[10][11] King was critical of hypocritical, white supremacist leaders such as Trump who considered themselves as both religious and complying with the law, stating “I have been so greatly disappointed with the white Church and its leadership…I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is law.”[12] These leaders discriminated against African Americans simply because of the color of their skin, despite the fact that white and black Americans are related, as substantiated by genetic DNA studies: “An estimated 82.1% of ancestors to African-Americans lived in Africa prior to the advent of transatlantic travel, 16.7% in Europe, and 1.2% in the Americas.[13][14] Martin Luther King, Jr. had Irish ancestry in addition to his sub-Saharan African ancestry,[15] yet he was regularly opposed by some white Americans who shared ancestors from some of the same places.
Ultimately, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man who opposed white supremacy and police brutality; he was not the spokesperson for Black America or the judge and jury for how black people should act. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood for the rights that black Americans were denied, and he stood against demagogues and leaders who used lies and fear. King denounced white supremacists who claimed to be religious and representative of “Law and Order”; politicians such as Donald Trump are the type of evil men that King would rebuke and criticize for their hypocrisy and bigotry.
[1] How Trump’s Idea for a Photo Op Led to Havoc in a Park.
When the history of the Trump presidency is written, the clash with protesters that preceded President Trump’s walk across Lafayette Square may be remembered as one of its defining moments. By Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman, Katie Rogers, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Katie BennerVideos by Haley Willis, Christiaan Triebert and David Botti. Published June 2, 2020. Updated Sept. 17, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/politics/trump-walk-lafayette-square.html?searchResultPosition=8
[2]https://www.google.com/books/edition/Locking_Up_Our_Own/3NEjDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=locking+up+our+own&printsec=frontcover. Forman, James. Locking Up Our Own. p 4-6.
[3] http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/undecided/630416-019.pdf. A Letter From a Birmingham Jail. p 9.
[4] Treat the Attack on the Capitol as Terrorism: Failing to do so simply because most of the rioters are white and regard themselves as “patriots” would be deeply unjust. Michael Paradis. January 17, 2021.
[5] Ibid.
[6] https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/politics/william-barr-out-as-attorney-general/index.html. Attorney General William Barr resigns.
By Allie Malloy, Devan Cole, Christina Carrega and Kevin Liptak, CNN. Updated 4:30 AM ET, Tue December 15, 2020. Trump tweets about Bill Barr’s departure from White House.
[7] http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/undecided/630416-019.pdf. A Letter From a Birmingham Jail. P 6-7.
[8] https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/politics/william-barr-out-as-attorney-general/index.html. Attorney General William Barr resigns.
By Allie Malloy, Devan Cole, Christina Carrega and Kevin Liptak, CNN. Updated 4:30 AM ET, Tue December 15, 2020. Trump tweets about Bill Barr’s departure from White House
[9] How Trump’s Idea for a Photo Op Led to Havoc in a Park
When the history of the Trump presidency is written, the clash with protesters that preceded President Trump’s walk across Lafayette Square may be remembered as one of its defining moments. By Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman, Katie Rogers, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Katie BennerVideos by Haley Willis, Christiaan Triebert and David Botti. Published June 2, 2020. Updated Sept. 17, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/politics/trump-walk-lafayette-square.html?searchResultPosition=8
[10] https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/trumps-actions-increase-legal-jeopardy/index.html. Trump’s actions in last days as President increase his legal jeopardy. CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Kara Scannell
By Kara Scannell, CNN. Updated 9:38 AM ET, Wed January 13, 2021.
[11] https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/25/opinions/biden-harris-overturn-trump-strongman-misogyny-ben-ghiat/index.html.
[12] http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/undecided/630416-019.pdf. A Letter From a Birmingham Jail. P .
[13] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/science/african-american-dna.html?partner=msft_msn. Tales of African-American History Found in DNA. By Carl Zimmer. May 27, 2016
[14] https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006059. The Great Migration and African-American Genomic Diversity
Soheil Baharian,Maxime Barakatt,Christopher R. Gignoux,Suyash Shringarpure,Jacob Errington,William J. Blot,Carlos D. Bustamante,Eimear E. Kenny,Scott M. Williams,Melinda C. Aldrich,Simon Gravel
Published: May 27, 2016.
[15] The Social Life of DNA. Alondra Nelson. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Social_Life_of_DNA/Xd7YCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Martin%20Luther%20King%20Ireland . p 160-161.