Our reading of Angelina Grimke's Rachel and Langston Hughes' Mulatto engendered several discussions about the multiple ways that "blackness" can be written for the stage. Particularly, both playwrights use language as a way to indicate the level of "blackness" lived by their characters. For example, both Grimke and Hughes use speech that is presented as "educated"and "uneducated" to create chracterizations of light skinned and dark skinned blacks respectively.
Keeping this in mind, how do Both Grimke and Hughes use language and color to differentiate the ways in which black Americans of various skin tones are afforded or denied certain privleges according to their phenotypical relationship to whiteness? In what ways to Grimke and Hughes begin to solicit a conversation about black identity as a simultaneous racial, social and poltical identification? Conversley, is Hughes successful at writing "whiteness" in Mulatto?
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Both Grimke and Hughes being of mixed race were able to effectively emote their personal frustrations with being a "tragic" mulatto in their respective works. For me Grimke's was less potent because 'Rachel' was a little fluffy. Meaning that the content and the realities of her life's situations did not come across as true to the time or true to the people. Many times throughout Rachel it felt almost fairytale like. Whereas in Hughes 'Mulatto' he makes a point to hear and tell everyone's story so that the characters then become relatable to all who read them, whether black or white.
Seeing as how Grimke's piece was propaganda I'm sure for DuBois it served its' purpose but as far as being considered a masterpiece from the first female playwright I do not think it reached it's audience affectively. Hughes I feel was effective at writing "whiteness" because he was able ,through life experience or otherwise, to be able to look first hand into the lives of white people and understand them for who they are and write more than their skin color. He wrote their emotions.
Hughes strategically allowed characters in Mulatto special privileges because of their skin color. The mulatto children were allowed to go off to school and they spoke with articulation. The dark characters were labeled as uneducated and to ignorant to attend school, they also spoke with broken English and were treated as plantation workers.
Grimke delivers a great conversation about black identity through the mother character when she addresses her daughter wanting to take care of brown and black babies. She speaks of the fears that blacks will face in life, either they will be lynched or discriminated against just because of their African ancestry. She bases this statement on the tragic lynching death of her son and husband who worked as an editor.
Hughes did an extraordinary job addressing whiteness in Mulatto. He allowed the character Robert to speak as if he was full-blood white the same as his father, Norwood. Others were intimidated by Norwood and the way other whites expressed themselves throughout the play, but Robert carried his shoulders back and head held high just as them. He had the same mentality as a white person because of his partially white lineage. Showing Roberts courage displayed him as a mirror to whiteness of these times.
In Rachel, Grimke uses language in an interesting way when it comes to the character of Tom. Tom speaks very eloquently, which clearly shows he is well educated. However, despite is composure and education, he is still facing racist employment practices. This shows that in Grimke's eyes, even though advancements have been made and some privileged blacks were allowed education, it in no way leveled the playing field.
Mulatto clearly shows how blacks with white blood in them are allowed much greater opportunities. Norwood's kids are allowed education and a chance for a life outside of the southern plantations. Their high education is shown through the language of the play, those that went to school come back and talk just as white characters do. One can see this in how Robert and his sister speak in the play. This is contrasted with characters like Cora and William who speak in broken English and are much more dependent on Norwood for survival. Hughes depicts the characters with who have more opportunity as having a better understanding of language.
In my opinion Hughes is not completely successful in depicting white's in this play. Norwood is the only character he attempts to make multi-demensional. All of the other white men are carved out to look like barbarians, salivating at the mouth when ever an opportunity arises to beat an African-American down. Although I am very aware that race relations in the south at this time were anything but good, I am convinced that these men had more layers and varied opinions. This was not at all depicted in Mulatto.
Both Grimke and Hughes presented in their works the fact that black Americans of lighter skin tones were afforded more priviledges than those of darker skin tones, and were, and to indicate this they used the device og language. In Grimke's "Rachel," The Loving children are assumed to be of a fairer, lighter complexion, and in relation to this are assigned a speech that is more educated and elevated than the language we see coming from blacks of darker skin tones.This is done to indicate that black Americans with lighter skin were afforded certain priviledges, like education, that those of darker skin were not. Hughes hits in this same theme in "Mulatto." Within the same family of brothers and sisters there were 2 lighter skin children, phenotypically looking more like their white father, and 1 with darker skin, looking more like his black mother. Within this family, the light skin children were afforded the priviledge of being sent to school and educated and thus they spoke in an elevated language with a more intellectual tone. Conversely, the dark skin child was not afforded the priviledge of going to school and being educated, and instead was exploited for his manual labor. The result of this is exhibited in the difference of speech between him and his lighter brother and sister. They speak with a more elevated language and he speaks in a more uneducated tone.
Grimke solicits conversation about black identity as a simultaneously racial, social, and political identification by saying that regardless of the difference in the shade of our skin, we are all black and in being so we are all subjected to the same prejudice and oppressionm therefore it is a collective problem that must be dealth with and addressed by the whole. Rachel points this out in the way she says she is afraid for the little black and brown babies and she wants to try and keep them safe from the cruelties of this world but she knows she cannot. She does not say it is the black and dark brown babies that need to be kept safe and will be persecuted all throughou their lives, she says that all black children of all shades will be subjected to this problem.
On the other hand, Hughes solicits such a conversation by drawing on the divide between "blacks" and "mulattos" with the idea that a person's identity of their blackness is defined in relation to their whiteness. For example, Robert feels he is entitled to the same rights and priviledges as whites not because he is human just as them but because he has white blood running through his veins. Therefore, Robert sees his racial, social, and political identity as a black man in relation to his whiteness. He places himself on a pedestal because his father is white. However, in the end when Robert is in danger of being lynched by a town mob Hughes shows up the same conclusion that Grimke does: regardless of the shade of your skin, or how much white a person has in them, they will always be considered black and never be afforded the same rights and priviledges as whites because of it.
I feel that Hughe sis very succesful at writing whiteness in mulatto. He captured the essence of the white "plantation master" that intermingles with his black slaves and even has children by them, while all the while expressing notions of blacks being inferior and subpar to him.
Hughes’ Robert has privileges in the fact that he knows his father’s identity and can defy his master/father’s authority as blatantly as he does. This relationship, and even the relationship between Robert and his mother, are indicative of the privileges presented to light-skinned blacks. If Robert had been dark-skinned, the play would have been over before it even started because he wouldn’t have been able to elude the eyes of white characters so obviously. Neither playwright expressed how his/her burden as a tragic mulatto figure fails in comparison to the plights of other black stigmas much of the time. Their interactions with medium-skinned or dark-skinned blacks is minimal, and *Rachel* presents dark-skinned blacks as some sort of puppy which she can care for. Thus, neither playwright presents effectively what is so tragic about being mulatto in terms of relationships with blacks suggesting that it is identity with one’s white side that drives the tragedy. Although it is conveyed that the black portion renders the tragedy, the playwrights suggest otherwise. Both Robert and Rachel take liberties denied to full-blown black characters and subjects. Their speeches are more polished and their attitudes more individualistic, suggesting also that that individualism (enough to defy a white master and proclaim not to have children) is inherently white.
Grimke and Hughes, also, were not the first to indicate black identity as a racial, social and political identification—with *The Escape,* the audience is presented with black as an identification on all these levels because blacks are enslaved; enslavement because you’re black is just cause to suggest black identity is racial, social and political.
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