Transcript Mulatto: A Play of the Deep South (1930) by Langston Hughes

Mulatto: A Play of the Deep
South (1930)
by Langston Hughes
Part I and II of II
Historical and Theatrical
Precedents
Lynching:
Strange Fruit: Georgia and Lynching
1)
Between 1882 and 1930 the American South experienced an epidemic
of fatal mob violence that produced more than 3,000 victims, the vast
majority of whom were African Americans. More than 450 documented
lynchings occurred in Georgia alone. Lynching refers to the illegal
killing of a person by a group of others. It does not refer to the method
of killing. Lynching victims were murdered by being hanged, shot,
burned, drowned, dismembered, or dragged to death.
In 1930, the year Hughes penned Mulatto, more lynchings occurred in
Georgia than in any other state.
Hughes had a voluminous correspondence with Walter White, who
headed the N.A.A.C.P from 1931 to 1955. White’s Fire in the Flint
(1924) was loosely based on his own investigations of mob violence in
south Georgia. White also wrote Rope and Faggot (1929); one of the
most influential nonfictional analyses of the causes, patterns, and rates
of southern lynchings. This work debunked the “big lie” that lynching
punished black men for raping white women and it provided White with
an opportunity to deliver a penetrating critique of the southern culture
that nourished this form of blood sport. He marshaled statistics
demonstrating that accusations of rape or attempted rape accounted
for less than 30 percent of all lynchings. Despite the emphasis on
sexual issues in instances of lynching, White insisted that the fury and
sadism with which white mobs attacked their victims stemmed primarily
from a desire to keep blacks in their place and control the black labor
force.
Hughes wrote several letters to White praising him for both his books
and his tireless (and life-threatening) campaign against lynching in the
South, particularly in his native-state of Georgia.
2)
3)
4)
The Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. August 7, 1930.
Walter Francis White
1893-1955
Talking Points
1)
Hughes, at the time of authorship, is faced with a bloody reality and some startling (to some) new (and documented) facts
about lynching, and yet he chose to keep his play out of the factory, somewhat “out-of-time,” (but notably not out of place),
and in the seeming context of a domestic drama. Conjecture as to the reasons behind these choices.
2)
What special ethical burdens did Hughes face at the time of authorship? What were the stakes? What is the inherent
assumption about the power of theatre being made here?
Lynching:
In Abraham’s Bosom
Talking Points
In Abraham's Bosom is a play by
American dramatist Paul Green.
Its original Broadway run starred
Charles Gilpin as an AfricanAmerican farmer from North
Carolina whose efforts at selfimprovement are thwarted by
segregation and a lynching that
is figured as inevitable. Though
most audiences felt the play to
be progressive, many of the
young writers associated with the
New Negro Movement and/or the
Harlem Renaissance felt that
Green’s characters were little
more than “darky” stereotypes,
especially in its representation of
an inarticulate mother and her
equally inarticulate mulatto son
(Hughes’s Cora and Robert’s
eloquence stand in stark
opposition to their “counterparts”
in Green’s lynching play). Green
received the Pulitzer Prize for
Drama for the work in 1927.
1)
Conjecture as to the
different burdens
(keeping in mind our
discussions about
representativity) that
faced Green and
Hughes at the time
of authorship of their
respective plays.
2)
How would Green’s
acclaim factor into all
of this? In other
words, what multiple
dilemmas did
Hughes face when
he picked up his
pen?
3)
The “bosom” of
Abraham
Defining and Redefining the Historical
Trope of the Mulatto:
Census, The Tragic Mulatto, The
Revolutionary Mulatto
1)
"Mulatto" was an official census category until 1930. In the
south of the country, mulattos inherited slave status if their
mother was a slave, although in Spanish and French-influenced
areas of the South prior to the Civil War (particularly in New
Orleans), a number of mulattos were also free and slaveowning. During the years 1700 – 1800, the term mulatto
represented a American Indian child ; it was not used to
represent mixed ancestry . The definition changed after the 14th
Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1868.
2)
Lydia Maria Child introduced the literary character that we call
the tragic mulatto in two short stories: "The Quadroons" (1842)
and "Slavery's Pleasant Homes" (1843). She portrayed this light
skinned woman as the offspring of a White slaveholder and his
Black female slave. This mulatto's life was indeed tragic. She
was ignorant of both her mother's race and her own. She
believed herself to be White and free. Her heart was pure, her
manners impeccable, her language polished, and her face
beautiful. Her father died; her "negro blood" discovered, she
was remanded to slavery, deserted by her White lover, and died
a victim of slavery and White male violence. A similar portrayal
of the near-White mulatto appeared in Clotel (1853), a novel
written by Black abolitionist William Wells Brown. Hughes’s
friend and contemporary, Nella Larsen, brought the tragic
mulatto to the forefront of the Harlem Renaissance in her novel
“Quicksand” with the tragic fate of the novel’s heroine, Helga
Crane.
3)
In Southern Plantation culture, the mulatto—especially when
educated--was commonly associated with rebellion and revolt.
Nearly all Southern slave revolts (whether it was the case or
not) were blamed on mulatto agitation. The theory behind the
stereotype was simple: “pure-blood” Negroes lacked the
intelligence to coordinate a revolt.
Talking Points
1)
Hughes offers us a refashioning of these facts and archetypes?
2) Describe some of the ways Hughes uses Robert to
accomplish these ends? How does “Cross” stage a similar
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HELPFUL “KEYS” FOR READING AND PERFORMING
MULATTO
Key Themes, Symbols, Polemics, and Intertexts
1)
Mulatto is, in part, anti-lynching play that explores miscegenation in a familial
context, and metaphorically on a national one.
2)
Intra-caste Prejudice
3)
The unspoken as a tool of survival and oppression
4)
The unspoken as a specter
5)
Lines
6)
Crosses
7)
Double Consciousness, Double Standards, Doppelgangers
8)
Sunsets
9)
The Moon
10) The figure of the Tragic/Trouble-Making mulatto in the history of American
letters
11)
Oedipus
12) Revelations
13) The Passion
14) Acting vs. Being Black
“The Burden of Representativity”
The Harlem Renaissance Call for a New Theater and
Hughes’s “Note on Commercial Theater”
1)
African American cultural leader like Alain Locke
and W.E.B. Du Bois actively encouraged the
development of a black theater.
2)
In 1926, in the paged of the Crisis, Du Bois
(Hughes childhood [and life-long] hero) called for
a Little Theater movement in black communities,
stipulating that the plays be “about us,” “by us,”
“for us”, and “near us.”
3)
Alain Locke (the so-called “Dean of the New
Negro Movement” and one of Hughes’s
mentors)recommended the Irish Abbey Players,
who toured the U.S. in 1911 and were credited
worldwide with creating a theatre capable of
depicting the Irish folk, as a model for a genre of
theatre capable of expressing “the Drama of
Negro Life”
Talking Points
•
How does Hughes’s poem rearticulate these
calls?
•
How does it refashion them?
•
To what problems does it allude that we’ve seen
mentioned in previous plays?
•
To what additional injustices does it give voice?
The Harlem Renaissance Call for a New Theater
and Alain Locke:
Key Points from his introduction to The New Negro
1)
That the “Old Negro” was more
of a myth than a man, created
to serve the purposes of
debate.
2)
That New Negro “selfunderstanding” finds its origins
and future potential in artistic
production. In other words, the
New Negro will, in essence,
write his way into a new selfunderstanding.
3)
That the New Negro collective
of young artists (that would
later come to be known as
Harlem Renaissance writers)
represented a new phase not
just in Negro Art, but in Negro
identity. Their works were
infused with a renewed selfrespect and self-dependence
that was, in turn, giving the
Negro community as a whole a
new kind of leadership and
positive self-definition.
Talking Points
1) How is Locke’s philosophy realized,
via performance, in this scene?
The Harlem Renaissance Call for a New Theater and “The Criteria for Negro Art” (1926)
The Negro artist has a special relationship to freedom that binds him to truth, justice, and their
synthesis in the Beautiful. Thus his art, in seeking beauty, will always be propaganda and
propaganda is the function of Negro Art (it must be so to fight other forms of propaganda that prove
destructive to the black community).
“The apostle of beauty thus becomes the apostle of truth and
right not by choice but by inner and outer compulsion. Free
he is but his freedom is ever bounded by truth and justice;
and slavery only dogs him when he is denied the right to tell
the truth or recognize an ideal of justice. “
“Thus all art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the
wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say
that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for
propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and
enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for
propaganda.”
“I do not doubt that the ultimate art coming from black folk is
going to be just as beautiful, and beautiful largely in the same
ways, as the art that comes from white folk, or yellow, or red;
but the point today is that until the art of the black folk
compels recognition they will not be rated as human. And
when through art they compel recognition then let the world
discover if it will that their art is as new as it is old and as old
as new. “
Talking Points
1) How is Robert an Apostle of Truth? 2)The Junction 3) The
symbolic resonances of refusing the true message of the son.
4) Acting Black v.s. Playing Black on stage 5) Custom and habit
6) Talking Right v.s. Talking Truth and the implications of both 7)
How does keeping the Du Boisian paradigm of Art in mind
make us think of Colonel Norwood?
Key Meditation on Race in Performance/Masking:
Acting Black vs./and Being Black
Talking Points
1)Masking vs. Masking on stage 2)Fictional Labels for Fictional Characters: Staging Intra-caste prejudice 3)Playing and not Playing Black 4)
The dangerous example: inside and outside the play 5)Locating, portraying, and writing the “Authentic Black”: Where to find it? 6) Grey Eyes
and a “Mixed South”8) Intra-group Masking 9) The implications of the impossibility of truth 10) Echoes of Locke (Old/New Negro)
Key Aesthetic Strategies/Fusing Fiction and Fact:
Contemporary Figures, Propaganda, Historical Figures,
Landscapes, and Hypocrisy
1) Theodore Gilmore Bilbo (October 13, 1877 – August 21, 1947) twice served as
governor of Mississippi (1916–20, 1928–32) and later became a U. S. Senator.
2) Proud member of the Ku Klux Klan , staunch supporter of segregation, and
outspoken advocate of disenfranchising the Black population of the U.S.
3) Author of: Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization (1947).
4) Bilbo helped carry Mississippi for Al Smith in the 1928 Presidential election by
claiming that Hoover, in 1927, “insisted that his train be routed through Mount
Bayou... in order that he might visit Mrs. Mary Booze, a negress, socially,“
5) Garvey praised him in return, saying that Bilbo had "done wonderfully well for
the Negro.“
6) Bilbo was a prominent participant in the lengthy filibusters of anti-lynching
bills before the Senate: “ If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open
the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and
crime will be increased a thousandfold [….]
1) John Elliott Rankin (March 29, 1882 – November 26, 1960) was a congressman
from Mississippi (serving from1921-1953)
2) He supported segregation , and--although the Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
provided Blacks with suffrage—Rankin (and others) worked vigorously enact
legislation, which used such things as the poll tax and literacy test to prohibit
Blacks from actually capitalizing on their right to vote.
3) He was considered the most outspoken leader of the Southern Democrats; and
proudly stood for "four- square against a federal ballot for soldiers, eight-square
against the Administration and, of course, sixteen-square in favor of the poll tax,
white supremacy, and Southern womanhood."
4) Rankin was also an outspoken anti-Communist , ranking member of HUAC. and
“Red-baiter,” largely because the Communist Party had not only called for
suffrage for all Blacks in the United States, but had also called for an independent
Black Republic for the Black Belt of the Southeastern United States to be brought
about either via the ballot or armed insurrection.
James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of
the United States (1845–1849). Polk was a slaveholder for his entire life. His
father, Samuel Polk, had left Polk more than 8,000 acres (32 km²) of land, and
divided about 53 slaves to his widow and children after Samuel died. James
inherited twenty of his father's slaves, either directly or from deceased brothers.
Polk rarely sold slaves, although once he became President and could better
afford it, he bought more. Polk's will stipulated that their slaves were to be freed
after his wife Sarah had died. He is considered to be the last “effective” president
to hold office before abolition
Talking Points
1 What is the effect produced by this
intertwining of historical personages and events
in a play that announces itself as a “tale”?
2) “Of course, I know”…what?
3) Given the play’s framing of the political and
judicial sphere, what do you make of Higgins’
brazen hypocrisy? Does it matter that his is the
“party-line”?
Echoing Walter White:
Property, Poverty, Labor, Sexual Transgression, and the Causes of
Lynching
The Great Depression
The setting notes for the play say that it takes place in the present time,
but it takes a little digging to figure out what Hughes means by present
time. Although the play was not published until the 1960s, it was first
performed in 1935, written in 1930, and copyrighted in 1932. Because of
this, Hughes most likely means for the play to take place sometime in the
early 1930s. This was a volatile time in America, which was undergoing
the devastating financial crisis known as the Great Depression. When the
stock market crashed in 1929, the mainly African American population
assumed that this was a “white problem” since African Americans did not
typically own stocks.
Talking Points: 1) Debunking the myth of Lynching: Labor and Sexual Transgression 2) Intra-Caste Prejudice: The Renaissance Drive to Portray
Beauty and Ugliness 3) Mose vs. Moses 4) Property, Inheritance, 5) “Son of yours” and “Ford of Mine” 6) Sun and Son 7) Echoes of Du Bois on
Washington
Recalling White
White also wrote Rope and Faggot (1929); one of the most influential
nonfictional analyses of the causes, patterns, and rates of southern
lynching. This work debunked the “big lie” that lynching punished black
men for raping white women and it provided White with an opportunity
to deliver a penetrating critique of the southern culture that nourished
this form of blood sport. He marshaled statistics demonstrating that
accusations of rape or attempted rape accounted for less than 30 percent
of all lynchings. Despite the emphasis on sexual issues in instances of
lynching, White insisted that the fury and sadism with which white mobs
attacked their victims stemmed primarily from a desire to keep blacks in
their place and control the black labor force.
Murder, Blood Vengeance, Freedom, Sacrifice, and the Possibility of
Resurrection without Redemption
Talking Points
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
Strangulation, Crucifixion, Suicide
Killing his whiteness? Or killing as whiteness?
“Niggers are living, he’s dead”
Father’s House/ Heaven
The River Jordan and the swamp
Expulsions from the father/Work/Slavery/Curses
Wade in the water (children)
Wade in the water
Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water
If you don't believe I've been redeemed
God's gonna trouble the water
I want you to follow him on down to Jordan
stream
(I said) My God's gonna trouble the water
You know chilly water is dark and cold
(I know my) God's gonna trouble the water
You know it chills my body but not my soul
(I said my) God's gonna trouble the water
(Come on let's) wade in the water
Wade in the water (children)
Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water
Family Lines and Family Circles
Line, Ellipsis, Triangles, Trinity
Talking Points
1) Flexible Lines and
Junctions
2) Lines and Ellipses
3) Love Triangles
4) The Trinity: Holy and
Unholy Ghosts
5) The impossibility of being
Father, Son, or Holy Ghost
6) Cora’s Madness: Insanity
or Epiphany
7) The Impossible Third
Term: The Impossible Ghost
8) The Risen and the
Renaissance
9)Echoes of Du Bois and
Washington
10) Oedipus and an Unholy
Ghost
Key Symbols Revisited:
Sunsets and Moon
Talking Points
1)Staging the Burden
of Representativity
2)Manipulating
meta-textual generic
markers
3)Realist SymbolismSun, Moon, and
Doors
4)Robert as Christ
and Anti-Christ
5)Inappropriate
contact and
foreshadowing
6)“blood cross”
7)“It’s nearly six”
1) Astronomy- As seen by an
observer on Earth on the imaginary
celestial sphere the Moon crosses
the ecliptic every orbit at positions
called nodes twice every month.
When the full moon occurs in the
same position at the node, a lunar
eclipse can occur. These two nodes
allow two to five eclipses per year,
parted by approximately six
months.
A total penumbral lunar eclipse
dims the moon in direct proportion
to the area of the sun’s disk blocked
by the earth, and is known as a “red
moon”
Apocalypse: Rev: 6: 12
I watched as the Lamb broke the
sixth seal, and there was a great
earthquake. The sun became as
dark as black cloth, and the moon
became as red as blood.
Intertexts
Christ and Oedipus
Religious and National Sacrifice, Responsibility, and Patriarchy
Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocast, king and queen of Thebes After having been
married some time without children, his parents consulted the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi
about their childlessness. The Oracle prophesied that if Laius should have a son, the son
would kill him and marry Jocasta. In an attempt to prevent this prophecy's fulfillment, when
Jocasta indeed bore a son, Laius had his ankles pinned together and gave the boy to a
servant to abandon on the nearby mountain. However, rather than leave the child to die as
Laius intended, the sympathetic servant passed the baby onto a shepherd from Corinth.
Little Oedipus (so named after the injuries to his feet, from when they were pinned together
as a child) came to the house of Polybus, king of Corinthand his queen, Merope, who were
without children of their own.
Many years later, Oedipus is told by a drunk that Polybus is not his real father but when he
asks his parents, they deny it. Oedipus, unsure, seeks counsel from the same Delphic
Oracle. The Oracle does not tell him the identity of his true parents but instead tells him
that he is destined to couple with his mother and kill his father (though not specifying in
which order). In his attempt to avoid the fate predicted by the Oracle, he decides to flee
from Corinth to Thebes.
As Oedipus travels he comes to the place where three roads meet, Davlia. Here he
encounters a chariot, driven by his (unrecognized) birth-father, King Laius. They fight over
who has the right to go first and Oedipus kills Laius in self defense, unwittingly fulfilling part
of the prophecy. The only witness of the king's death was a slave who fled from a caravan
of slaves also traveling on the road.
Many years after the marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta, a plague of infertility strikes the city
of Thebes; crops no longer grow to harvest and women do not bear children. Oedipus, in
his hubris and according to the dictated of and responsibilities of his birthright, asserts that
he will end the pestilence. He sends Creon, Jocasta's brother, to the Oracle at Delphi,
seeking guidance. When Creon returns, Oedipus hears that the murderer of the former
King Laius must be found and either be killed or exiled. In a search for the identity of the
killer, Oedipus follows Creon's suggestion and sends for the blind prophet, Tiresias, who
warns him not to try to find the killer. In a heated exchange, Tiresias is provoked into
exposing Oedipus himself as the killer, and the fact that Oedipus is living in shame
because he does not know who his true parents are. Oedipus blames Creon for Tiresias
telling Oedipus that he was the killer. Oedipus and Creon begin a heated argument.
Jocasta enters and tries to calm Oedipus. She tries to comfort him by telling him about her
old husband and his supposed death. Oedipus becomes unnerved as he begins to think
that he might have killed Laius and so brought about the plague. Suddenly, a messenger
arrives from Corinth with the news that King Polybus has died and that the people of
Corinth would have Oedipus as their king. Oedipus is relieved concerning the prophecy, for
it could no longer be fulfilled if Polybus, whom he thinks is his father, is now dead.
Nonetheless, he is wary while his mother lives and does not wish to go. To ease the stress
of the matter, the messenger then reveals that Oedipus was, in fact, adopted. Jocasta,
finally realizing Oedipus' true identity, begs him to abandon his search for Laius' murderer.
Oedipus misunderstands the motivation of her pleas, thinking that she was ashamed of
him because he might have been the son of a slave. She then goes into the palace where
she hangs herself. Oedipus seeks verification of the messenger's story from the very same
herdsman who was supposed to have left Oedipus to die as a baby. From the herdsman,
Oedipus learns that the infant raised as the adopted son of Polybus and Merope was the
son of Laius and Jocasta. Thus, Oedipus finally realizes in great agony that so many years
ago, at the place where three roads meet, he had killed his own father, King Laius, and as
consequence, married his mother, Jocasta.
Oedipus goes in search of Jocasta and finds she has killed herself. Taking two pins from
her dress, Oedipus gouges his eyes out.
Talking Points
1)How do these
two myths of
nation and
patriarchy
complement
and complicate
one another?
2)Why layer
multiple
cosmologies
onto “the
present”?
3)What kind of
national allegory
is MULATTO?
A Brief History of the Text and Play
Production History and Karamu House
1) Although written in 1930, Mulatto was not staged until 1935.
2) It was first produced at the famous Karamu House by the Gilpin Players who made
Hughes their official playwright in residence in 1930.
3) The play was substantially altered for Broadway (a rape scene was added in which
Norwood rapes Sallie without Hughes’s knowledge).
4) Although the Broadway production received terrible reviews, it was a spectacular
success and ran for more than a year before touring.
5) It was the largest grossing play written by an African-American for decades, finally
yielding that distinction to A Raisin in the Sun.
6) The play was banned in several cities, including Philadelphia and Chicago
7) Karamu House is the oldest African-American Theater in the United Sates. In
1915, Russell and Rowena Woodham Jelliffe, graduates of Oberlin College in
nearby Oberlin, Ohio, opened what was then called Settlement House and
established as a place where people of different races, creeds and religions could
find a common ground. Many of Hughes’ plays debuted at Karamu House, and it
remains a cultural Mecca to this very day.
Explaining Some of the Text’s Anachronisms
The Production History of Mulatto in Hughes’s Own
Words
Explaining Some of the Text’s Anachronisms
The Production History of Mulatto in Hughes’s Own Words
Explaining Some of the Text’s Anachronisms
The Production History of Mulatto in Hughes’s Own Words