Torn But Singing Between The Black And The White

The 20th century is an age that witnessed the dramatic rise of modernism whose disparate branches include postcolonialism. Postcolonial criticism deals with the reading and writing of literature written in previously or currently colonized countries, or literature written in colonizing countries which deals with colonization or colonized peoples. It focuses particularly on the way in which literature by the colonizing culture distorts the experience and realities, and inscribes the inferiority, of the colonized people on literature by colonized peoples which attempts to articulate their identity and reclaim their past in the face of that past's inevitable otherness. It can also deal with the way in which literature in colonizing countries appropriates the language, images, scenes, traditions and so forth of colonized countries.Although the black have stopped being enslaved since the Civil War, a problem is sensed and presented by artists and thinkers like Langston Hughes that there is still intangible oppression and deprivation by the white to the black, which leads to the inferiority of the latter and even the loss of their cultural identity which means self-confidence and hope for freedom to the oppressed as a whole. In such a context, Langston Hughes determines to find by poetry writing a path to genuine freedom for his fellow blacks. This thesis intends to decipher the postcolonialist elements in Langston Hughes's poems and define Hughes's idea and method to emancipate the African-American.In the first of its three parts, this thesis makes an introduction of the major period of Langston Hughes's writing, i.e. the Harlem Renaissance in which Hughes's literary works are highlighted.The second part of the paper is an introduction to prominent scholars of postcolonialism including Antonio Gramsci, Frantz Fanon and Edward Said. The times of Langston Hughes is also analyzed here to be of a postcolonialist context.Gramsci argues that there is a cultural network in capitalist countries that helpstake control of the working class. He claims that the intellectuals of the working class are to break through this intangible monopoly of knowledge, ethic and culture and take over the hegemony in the field of culture and all other fields, thus gain all power of the society. Gramsci's thoughts lay the foundation for later postcolonialist theory.It is Fanon who puts Gramsci's cultural theory into racial studies. He points out the deplorable situation of the African who are overwhelmed by their inferiority before the white. In this way, as Fanon claims, the black are deprived of their own cultural identity and spiritual edification by their art and history.Said furthers postcolonialist criticism by pointing out the misreading of the East by the West as well as the hope that the East and the West can have conversations on equal basis of multiculturalism.This thesis then analyzes the times of Hughes and draws to a conclusion that the poet's times is of a postcolonialist context in that the residual racial discrimination still existed and the advantageous culture of the white overwhelmed and marginalized its black counterpart, depriving the black of their cultural confidence and identity, thus created a kind of cultural colonization on the black.In the third part of the thesis, some analysis on Langston Hughes's poetry is made. It is noted by the author that the poet makes great efforts to evoke the long lost cultural legacy of the African-American from their long history and disparate forms of art, which is expected by the poet to remind the black of their common origin, elevate their self-confidence and unite them as an integrated group against the cultural invasion by the white so as to gain cultural independence and even liberty in all realms. These are exactly what Gramsci and Fanon advocate.Yet Hughes does not preach racial clashes. Instead, partly out of his cultural conscience and partly out of his blood half black and half white he calls for equal relationship between the two races. This blood origin helps make Hughes view ra...