Index“Home” and the Subversive Quality of Presence“Father and Son”: Death and AgencyHughes and Hurston: Individualism versus Social ProblemIn Langston The Short Story Collection by Hughes “Ways of White Folks,” gifted and upwardly mobile African Americans often encounter misfortune. On a superficial reading, these fatalistic narratives appear to connote a dire and helpless fate for African Americans. Despite their oppression, however, his main characters continue to display vivacity and courage. In this, he simultaneously recognizes that African Americans may be exceptional, but that, ultimately, their exceptionality cannot save them. Its hope lies in the agency and talent of its characters: despite these conditions, black people continue to be creative, strong-willed, and articulate. Focusing on the stories “Home” and “Father and Son,” this article will discuss how Hughes uses seemingly fatalistic narratives not only to critique racism, but to provide hope within these limitations. It will also briefly compare Hughes' views on social mobility with those of Zora Neale Hurston. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay “The House” and the Subversive Quality of PresenceHughes does not procrastinate in portraying the reality of death when choosing to be an “uppity nigger,” (a well-dressed, educated, or gifted black), coined by the white antagonists in “ Home” (36). As a second story, “Home” immediately causes the reader to “critique how mobility is fraught with difficulties for gifted blacks” (class discussion 1/1/07). Hopkinsville, Missouri, after playing violin in nightclubs across Europe This return is spurred by an illness that Roy believes will be his death. He is also appalled by the excess of Europe juxtaposed with its devastating poverty “rotten everywhere” and longs to “go home” (35) After spending years in a more racially tolerant Europe, Roy consistently fails to remember how inappropriate his actions were in America: “Roy had forgotten.” to be is not in Europe, wearing gloves and shaking hands with a white man! Damn it!" (36). He is so used to socializing with whites that he cannot immediately assimilate into bigoted Hopkinsville. Many white residents ensured that he would not forget his social position in America: “For the first time in a half dozen of years he felt his color. He was at home” (37). In this text there is a definitive critique of America in relation to Europe. Roy never needed to show deference unnecessary towards a white man or to worry about harassment for dressing above his class Roy's mother convinces him to play a show "fo' de Lawd" at the Hopkinsville church (38).” Although the audience is made up of both blacks and whites, the whites sit in the front. As he plays, Roy is proud of his art and the example he becomes for his race: “It's the first time one of their race has come home. from abroad playing a violin. Look at them looking at me proudly and listening to the music above the heads of the white people in the front rows…” (42). racial unity by traveling in Europe. He recalls that there is no black high school in Hopkinsville and that his only option for education was to run away with a minstrel show. The rarity of his situation shows how difficult it is for blacks to obtain a. education After the show, Roy meets and befriends MissReese, a white high school music teacher. Their friendship seems to demonstrate art's ability to transcend racial lines. However, this impression is ruined when Roy is accused of rape for stopping to talk to Miss Reese on the street. His white accusers beat and hang him. Although Roy's suspended, lifeless body is compared to "a violin played by the wind", this is not a reflection of his passivity in life. The violin simile denotes that Hughes does not see art as a panacea to racial problems. Nor does Roy's free will and ability to make choices save him. But in itself, the fact that he's making choices serves as a larger redemption. One might attribute Roy's negligence in adapting his attitudes and dress to Missouri to naivety. Maybe it's more than naivety; perhaps it's Roy's deliberate stubbornness in the face of racism. He does not live in fear, walks at night without hesitation and ignores the insults directed at him. For the first time in Hopkinsville, whites and blacks see a black man in a fine evening suit, playing a violin. Even in his shyness, Roy's very presence is subversive. “Father and Son”: Death and Agency. In “Father and Son,” a story of the doomed relationships between Bert, a spirited mulatto son, and Tom, his distant white father, Hughes enters the picture. the story with a strong authorial presence to convey the quality of life "in a test tube". Bert's strained relationship with his father is renewed when he returns home from school after an absence of six or seven years, determined not to bow to a white man: “…after returning to the Big House Plantation that summer, life it was no longer the same. From Bert's first day there, something was broken, something was dizzy. The world began to spin, ferment and move into new action. Not to be the white man's nigger: Bert had come home with that idea in his head” (227-228). Bert's catalyzing presence creates unrest between whites and blacks. Hughes compares Bert's arrival to a powerful powder that will boil the “test tube of life,” or the city. Bert's diametrically opposed brother, Willie, chose to stay on the plantation rather than get an education: "Willie and the colonel got along well, because Willie was docile, good-natured and nigger-like, he bowed and scraped and treated the whites how they expected to be treated” (226). Bert's mother, Cora, admonishes Bert for his haughtiness and complains that he can no longer be “like Willie” (237). his father orders him to work on the plantation, but as punishment his father forbids him from returning to school. Although Bert is half white, his father still deprives him of education. This punishment also arises from Tom's suspicion that Bert is the cause of discontent among blacks. His proud ways and continued refusal to bow to whites create growing tension between father and son. This tension ends with Tom threatening to shoot Bert and Bert strangling Tom to death. Bert then chooses to take his own life rather than die at the hands of a white mob. Bert is exceptional and the strength of his action is also demonstrated by his ability to be the arbiter of his own death. He usurps the pleasure of his death to the crowd and retains his dignity through suicide. The mob still lynches him, but the entertainment they can get from his hanging is "kind of stale in the end" (254). Even in death, Bert renders white bloodlust impotent. However, as Bert's death proves disappointing to the crowd, they torture and hang Willie as well. Despite taking all measures not to agitate the whites, therefore, Willie still dies by their hands