Publication Date
Spring 5-15-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in English (MA)
Department
English
Committee Chair
Nathaniel R. Racine
Committee Member
Jonathan W. Murphy
Committee Member
Debbie R. Lelekis
Committee Member
Andrew J. Hazelton
Abstract
After introducing Langston Hughes and defining Robert B. Stepto’s “Afro-American narrative” tradition, Chapter One presents a biography of Hughes from his birth in 1902 until he came under the patronage of Charlotte Osgood Mason in 1927. Chapter One also addresses the aesthetic expectations of the Harlem Renaissance and the extent to which Hughes either met or failed to meet those expectations. Chapter Two presents a reading of Not without Laughter as an integrated narrative, addressing how Hughes’s authenticating strategies and Mason’s authenticating devices evenly control the novel. Chapter Three presents a reading of Hughes’s short-story cycle, The Ways of White Folks, as a generic narrative, addressing how its black male as well as black female protagonists are affected by what Stepto refers to as the “symbolic geography” of the African-American people, including the Midwest, the Northeast, and the South. Hughes utilizes what the following thesis deems a cyclical ritual to accomplish this task. Its conclusion thus reevaluates Hughes’s place within the “Afro-American narrative” tradition as first defined by Stepto.
Recommended Citation
Haynes, Paul, "LANGSTON HUGHES AND THE “AFRO-AMERICAN NARRATIVE” TRADITION" (2025). Theses and Dissertations. 212.
https://rio.tamiu.edu/etds/212
Included in
African American Studies Commons, American Literature Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons
