For my research paper, I have chosen to write on Langston Hughes, and I chose the lens of post colonialism. I feel that this is a natural choice for this writer in terms of the poetry, the time era in which it was written, and the topics that are addressed in the poetry. Post colonialism deals with displacement issues of a large number of people and their search for identity both as a people and as individuals. It addresses issues of discrimination, oppression, racism, and struggle.
Colonization is, defined by Webster, “to infiltrate with usually subversive militants for propaganda and strategy reasons” (Online). After the colonization of any people, it is clear that the politics and power struggle are clear issues of contention. What post colonization attempts to do is redefine who these ‘colonized’ people are once again. Rather than dismiss them as products of their ‘colonizers’, it attempts to understand and appreciate the people who are subjected to this colonization and their attempts to thrive and adjust to the newly experienced ideas and surroundings they encounter on their way to re-identifying with their cultures. After colonization occurs with any people, post colonialism addresses the issues of developing a new identity both nationally and individually.
Post colonialism primarily refers to the resistance from the West to diverging cultures and classes. This Western resistance began this theory and continues to play a role in the development of this theoretical lens. Although some would argue that this is a temporary state, and not a true theory to be developed into the changing global society, post colonialism is a permanent way of looking at the trans-culturalization or the globalization processes that occur in any meshing of people, countries, or identities.
What Hughes two works dually theme is a process of colonization. The rhetoric that he uses is best described in “On National Culture” by Franz Fanon who states, “The native intellectual nevertheless sooner or later will realize that you do not show proof of your nation from its culture but that you substantiate its existence in the fight which the people wage against the forces of occupation.” This quote is indicative of the forceful nature by which Hughes attacks the structures of the oppression that the marginalized American’s felt at the hands of the European government ideas and institutions. More specifically, I intend to support the idea that Hughes was, in fact, waging a silent war on these oppressions and racisms through his writing.
Hughes himself expressed, “We, the creators of the new generation, want to give expression to our black personality without shame or fear… We know we are handsome. Ugly as well. The drums weep and the drums laugh.” Using works like “creators”, “shame”, and “fear”, it is easily seen that Hughes was passively attacking the standard of societal norms to attempt to redefine what the colonized people of his country should demand. Pushing the boundaries and testing the waters, both Hughes’ poems that I will analyze are full of conflict. It is this conflict and its sources that bring about the lens of post-colonial issues of alterity, Diaspora, Eurocentrism, hybridity, and imperialism.
Works Cited
Online, Merriam Webster. colonize. 4 November 2009.
Chrisman, Patrick Williams and Laura. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Online, Merriam Webster. colonize. 4 November 2009.
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