Langston Hughes, a classic American author, is perhaps best known for his flexible writing style. Langston Hughes is the only writer who can alternate between prose poetry and prose. He is also a master of both. In order to emphasize a formal point, however, he often alters his style within either genre to make an argument. He does this because his writing style serves as a tool for creating a motif which communicates important information about the work’s subject. Hughes’s style changes can be seen in two stories in The Ways of White Folks.
Langston Hughes wrote “Red-Headed Baby” about Clarence, an American seaman. It is about Clarence’s search for Betsy (a Black girl) who lives in the port of a Black village. He is determined to have sex with Betsy again and discovers that there is a 2-year-old girl at the girl’s place who has the same blonde hair as him. He cannot accept the fact that his son is colored, so he leaves Betsy’s home. The story is littered with sentences that do not convey all of Clarence’s thoughts. Clarence is the protagonist and narrates the story from his point of view. This allows his narrative voice and dialogue to merge.
Hughes’ narrative style is significant because he uses punctuation to indicate Clarence’s anxiety levels. As he becomes more anxious, these thoughts will start to merge. For example, Clarence’s discovery of the child leads to a string of repetitive sentences. Clarence uses certain allusions to make the narrative more poetic, such as when he discovers the child and recognizes it as his. “Goggly-eyed dolls at the County Fair you hit with an object” or “three shots to a quarter like loaded dolls”
Clarence’s view of Blacks throughout the story is subhuman and lowly. Clarence uses the person’s exterior appearance to determine their worth. Clarence sees color in people’s skin as a devaluer. His great aunt calls Clarence the blind boy. Clarence is also able to dominate the text through his narration. Clarence’s voice dominates both the narration and the dialogue. Betsy, the Old Woman and a few other characters speak only through Clarence. Hughes never inserts quotes beginning with “Betsy spoke” or “the old woman replied” which means that Clarence controls the narrative. He defines the human value system. Ironicly, his namesake is deaf and cannot speak. Hughes seems imply that Clarence is not using all his senses.
Hughes presents the implicit binary, black/white, but also a clear opposition to red/yellow. Betsy is interracial, having been raised mixed with Black, White and other races. But the reader does not know that Betsy is Black. Clarence calls Betsy a “nigger”, which means that Betsy is yellow and not black. This shows the inequity inherent in Whites’ race-based rules. Their system essentially defined Black as any person who showed any sign of Black in them. This is why mulatto and quadroon are referred to as racist terms.
Hughes tells the story of a young African American boy who is a servant for Mr. Lloyd, a wealthy White man. The story is told by the young boy, who tells his story to another boy. He said that it was the most lucrative job he had ever held. He was paid twenty dollars per week by Mr. Lloyd. He would also give him fives when he was going on vacation. And, perhaps most importantly, Mr. Lloyd didn’t have any issues with Blacks. This made it easy for him to treat the narrator with respect.
Whites are best understood by how rare Mr. Lloyd is. A peculiar White man, Lloyd is paralysed so he can not have sex. He also suffers from depression and drinks heavily. More than his depression, however, it is pregnant by the fact that Lloyd suffers from a severe case of mental illness. This happens after he falls in love with Pauline, a Harlem-based jane. It suggests that Lloyd was on the edge. It becomes clear that only an insane, White male could be so comfortable living with Blacks. The reader is now led to question the narrator’s fair treatment for Mr. Lloyd as evidence that he wasn’t a good man. Instead, it is evidence that he was desperate to find companionship, which is why he couldn’t afford cutting out Blacks.
Riverside Drive/Harlem is the most intriguing binary opposition in this text. These two locations are antithesis of each other, which is why the story makes it so easy to tell. Riverside Drive is the location where Mr. Lloyd lives. Because the narrator nearly always maintains Mr. Lloyd’s house, Harlem gets absence. However, there is one scene that Mr. Lloyd finds Pauline and her colored lover. This binary opposition adds to the presence/absence. Another binary opposition that can be used in conjunction with them is the man/woman. A third binary is White/Black, due to Mr. Lloyd’s special acceptance of Blacks as White men.
Some terms have privilege in each opposition. Riverside Drive, for instance, is more privileged than Harlem because it is the richest part of town and implicitly because it is home to Blacks. The plot is driven by characters that are present, so it is preferable to have them present. The narrator is most present in the text. Mr. Lloyd is second. They dominate the text. But Mr. Lloyd only mentions his paralyzed wife from time to time. She is not seen and therefore absent. Her absence shows her powerlessness. She can’t stop Mr. Lloyd snoring with these other women since she is stuck in White Plains. The text places man ahead of woman because Lloyd determines when and how long he keeps the women he sees with him. These binary contradictions create a classist hierarchy of sexist and racist men who are wealthy, white, and male. Pauline, an African woman from Harlem in dire need of money, has the contradictions. She falls in love helplessly with Lloyd. He does not reciprocate. She seizes control of him and disrupts the hierarchy. Pauline’s influence also means that even the narrator loses his job.
Even the most powerful terms can have contradictions. Whiteness and masculinity can be privileged. But they are in conflict when it comes to the White women Lloyd has an affair with. They have no evidence of power despite being White. Their femininity shouldn’t cancel out their whiteness but it does. Therefore, the text shows inequity among all privileges.
Hughes’ writing style is used in both these pieces to give Hughes’ narrator the most authentic voices possible. Hughes makes the reader feel like he has actually met these characters. His writing style is so flexible because of this. Hughes has the ability to transform his writing in a way that makes it evocative and memorable.
