Tucker Harwood

Humanizing the Dehumanized

10/7/14

The writers of the Harlem Renaissance sought to humanize the subject through
the employment of techniques such as the appropriation of traditional forms and the
incorporation of popular black culture and art into their poetry. Indeed, Art itself was the
primary vehicle for this humanization, not simply because we are talking about poetry,
but because art is the province of the subjectiveand it is exactly the restoring of
subjectivity to the objectified that is humanization. Therefore, art itself is arguably the
most common theme within the works of these writers, but it is hardly the only one. In
this essay I will examine the works of Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen,
and Gwendolyn Bennett. I will show that these writers employ many themes and
elements, but they always return to a humanizing and educating mission.
The significance of art can be seen clearly in Claude McKays Harlem Dancer.
In the poem the dancer is humanized through her agencyshe both sings and dances.
However, though the dancer regains her subjectivity through her production of a cultural
product, the dancing, she still exists within the larger racist society. The persona says that
she has Grown lovelier for passing through a storm. On the one hand, this storm can be
seen as the racist context in which she lives, but upon closer examination we find that her
surroundings are characterized by others and their gaze, others who Devoured her with
their eager, passionate gaze. It is interesting therefore that her face is falsely-smiling
and that the persona knows her self was not in that strange place.
Of particular interest is that the spectators of the dancer are wine-flushed, a
detail that gains even greater significance when examined alongside Countee Cullens
Harlem Wine. In this poem the wine can be interpreted as the cultural production of the
people of Harlem itself. The wine is described as flowing Where song is in the air and

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Humanizing the Dehumanized

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it has the ability to woo an artful flute. Interestingly, the Harlem dancers voice is also
described as being like the sound of blended flutes. Indeed, the wine even takes on the
characteristics of the dancer herself for, its measurements of joy compute / with blithe,
ecstatic hips.
In Harlem Wine the wine is described as being thick rebellious streams that
must flow on. This rebellion however is not an insurrection, but is instead a strength
that is being drawn from the community, a strength that hurtle[s] flesh and bone past
fear / Down alleyways of dreams. This strength is mirrored in Langston Hughes I, too
in which the darker brother is sent to the kitchen. However, in the kitchen the persona
is able to gain strength, but it is not through the imbibing of wine this time, but instead
through the consumption of food more generally. This mirrors the social reality in
Harlem during this periodthough the African-American populations were denied
access to affluent white society, and lived in communities outside of that society, it is
from these communities that individuals gained the strength to reassert their subjectivity.
Notice how I, Too begins, I, too, sing Americait is through the cultural production
of the community, that the persona is able to speak. Notice also how the poem ends, I,
too, am Americathe persona has become part of the national collective through art;
they are no longer an objectified other but are instead a subject once more.
However, despite the strength that the persona finds in the kitchen, he is in the
kitchen nonetheless, and it is his dream that Tomorrow, / Ill be at the table. This
inability to escape the social circumstances through art alone is mirrored in The Weary
Blues by Langston Hughes. In this poem, despite the musicians music uplifting the
persona, Sweet Blues! / Coming from a black mans soul. / O Blues! the musician

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Humanizing the Dehumanized

10/7/14

himself is described as singing with a melancholy tone and he even remarks that he
wishes I had died.
This economic and social reality is examined most noticeably in Claude McKays
Harlem Shadows which describes prostitutes in Harlem walking the streets through the
long night. However, it is not the girls that the persona sees, but instead the shapes of
girls who pass. The girls therefore have been objectified by desires call. However, it
is not merely the girls who have been dehumanized by this situation, but the Johns as
well, who would have certainly been both black and white.
The fact that both the girls and the Johns are dehumanized through this process is
an important one, but the question remains as to how this objectification comes about.
This question is taken up in Countee Cullens poem, Incident in which the personas
youth and glee for Baltimore is disturbed by racism. That is to say, the personas natural
inclination is corrupted. Indeed, before the incident the persona is assumed to be a
Baltimorean, but afterwards a new social label has been applied to him, Nigger.
This application of labels and social strata to an otherwise natural and equitable
order is a recurring theme among Countee Cullens work in particular. In To a Brown
Boy the subject, a brown girl, is described in terms of the natural: For there is ample
room for bliss / In pride in clean brown limbs, / And lips know better how to kiss / Than
how to raise white hymns. These last two lines are of special significance, as kissing can
be seen as a natural use of the body, while the singing of white hymns is part of the
socially-constructed order.
This theme is further elaborated on in Tableau in which a black and a white girl
transgress the socializing influences coming from both black and white people: From

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Humanizing the Dehumanized

10/7/14

lowered blinds the dark folk stare / And here the fair folk talk. Tellingly, it is the whites
whom occupy an active role in the socialization process, as they are the dominant class.
Nevertheless, the boy and girl cross the way forging their own path against social
taboos, a path that necessarily leads them back to a natural order: They pass, and see no
wonder / That lightning brilliant as a sword / Should blaze the path of thunder.
This natural order is not confined to abstraction or intellectualization however.
Indeed, the method of achieving this natural state is art itself. In Langston Hughes
Jazzonia a dancing girl dances to a Harlem cabaret. However, unlike McKays dancer,
it is not the dancer herself who is compared to the natural this time, but instead the music
itself. In Harlem Dancer the girl seemed a proudly-swaying palm, but this time the
tree does not dance, it sings: Oh, singing tree! / Oh, Shining rivers of the soul! Yet, the
dancer moves to this music, and gains subjectivity and agency through it: her eyes are
emboldened, and she is compared to Eve and Cleopatra, both strong historical subjects.
However, there exists a tension between this naturalizing impulse and the social
and economic realities. In Langston Hughes Elevator Boy we see that the persona has
a job, yet the Job aint no good though. Indeed, the persona goes on to tell us that Jobs
are just chances, that is, that social mobility is more a matter of luck and circumstance
than hard work. As the blues singer in The Weary Blues says, I got the Weary Blues /
And I cant be satisfied. Gwendolyn Bennett examines this tension in her poem To a
Dark Girl in which the persona encourages the girl to embrace her natural qualities, her
queenliness, and abandon her unnatural ones, the memory of slavery. The persona tells
the girl to let your full lips laugh at Fate! yet despite the personas encouragement we
have to wonder whether it is reasonable to expect this to come to pass for it is not

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Humanizing the Dehumanized

10/7/14

laughter that characterizes the girls speech in the previous section of the poem but
instead a sadness in your voice and something of the shackled slave / Sobs in the
rhythm of your talk.
How to deal with these social inequalities is a major theme of these authors
works. Of great importance to this question are concerns surrounding hate and the use of
violence. In Claude McKays The White House the persona stands not just outside the
house of the president, but outside of affluent white society more generally. Yet despite
the many tribulations the persona experiences in this endeavor, he or she bear my anger
proudly and unbent and keep my heart inviolate / Against the potent poison of your
hate.
Indeed, this idea, of responding to oppression and violence with restraint is an
important one, for it is through this process that both the oppressor and the oppressed
become humanized. In To the White Fiends Claude McKay writes, Think you I am
not fiend and savage too? / Think you I could not arm me with a gun / And shoot down
ten of you for every one / Of my black brothers murdered, burnt by you? Yet, of course
the persona will not do this, for as (s)he says, But the Almighty from the darkness drew /
My soul and said: Even thou shalt be a light / Awhile to burn on the benighted earth, /
Thy dusky face I set among the white / For thee to prove thyself of higher worth.
Therefore, by showing restraint the persona reeducates his or her oppressors(s)he
proves thyself of higher worthproves that like all humans he or she is from the same
almighty source. Or, as Claude McKay put it another way in his poem If We Must Die,
If we must die, O let us nobly die, / So that out precious blood may not be shed / In vain;
then even the monsters we defy / Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

Tucker Harwood

Humanizing the Dehumanized

10/7/14

The diction surrounding this educative impulse can be charged with energy. In
Claude McKays Baptism the persona leaves your world of tears, that is, the
economic and social reality of a racist society, and is transformed by purifying fire.
However, this journey is not a form of escapism, but is instead a necessary step, for the
persona returns to the world a stronger soul within a finer frame. This poem has
obvious parallels with Langston Hughes Goodbye Christ in which the persona inserts
him or herself into the transformative consciousness through a constant repetition of
ME. As the persona says, The world is mine from now on / And nobodys gonna
sell ME. The persona has reasserted his or her subjectivity.
Responding with violence would only further dehumanize both parties, but it
would also further divide them. The implications of this fact can be seen in poems that
deal with the role of African-Americans as Americans. In Langston Hughes America
he writes, You are America. I am America and though there may be stains On the
beauty of democracy, / I want to be clean and the method of doing so is not through
violence but instead Offering hands / Being brothers, / Being one.
Obviously, part of the African-American identity includes a memory of slavery,
and this aspect appears repeatedly as the trope of the neglectful mother. In Claude
McKays America the persona remarks that America feeds me bread of bitterness /
And sinks into my throat her tigers tooth. Yet, despite these shortcoming the persona
confesses that, I love this cultured hell that tests my youth! / Her vigor flows like tides
into my blood, / Giving me strength erect against her hate. Therefore, although America
has objectified and dehumanized African-Americans, the persona draws strength and
courage from his or her identity as an Americanbecause to commit violence against

Tucker Harwood

Humanizing the Dehumanized

10/7/14

their oppressors would hurt all of America, including the persona. Langston Hughes
examines this theme as well in Mother to Son in which the mother tells the son that
Life for me aint been no crystal stair but that she has kept on climbing, kept on
advancing, and that the son must too. That is to say, the son cannot simply give up on
America, turn back, even when goin in the dark due to the familial nature of the
relationship. Indeed, in Langston Hughes Mulatto the persona feels A hate that only
kin can feel for kin. Yet the persona goes on to tell us that this hate springs from a love
of justice and that (s)he will plunge a knife into his or her fathers heart. But this is not a
violent actit is instead a transformative act of love.
Like the persona of Claude McKays America, the persona of
Gwendolyn Bennets Hatred feels a hatred inspired by love. Though the persona begins
by saying I shall hate you, this statement is undercut by the lines Hating you shall be a
game / Played with cool hands / And slim fingers implying a delicacy to the hatred. This
is not the fiery passion found in Baptism but it is purifying nonetheless, for at the end
of the poem the persona claims, Memory will lay its hands / Upon your breast / And you
will understand / My hatred. That is to say, that the oppressor will be reeducated and
rehumanized.
It is important to remember, however, that these poets worked within a genre
steeped in tradition. Some poets, such as Claude McKay made great use of the existing
forms, while others, most notably Langston Hughes, made innovations in form by
combining unique aspects of African-American culture, such as jazz, into their poetry. By
using traditional forms poets of the Harlem Renaissance could perhaps reach a larger
(and whiter) audience, but by integrating African-American cultural products into poetry

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Humanizing the Dehumanized

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poets like Langston Hughes validate and embrace African-American culture and
experiences.
Obviously, there are costs and benefits to both of these approaches, but the
common denominator between the two is that both seek to educate and humanize by
writing about the African-American experience. In one traditional form, the sonnet,
Gwendolyn Bennet responds to Countee Cullens To John Keats, Poet, at Spring Time.
Cullens poem is largely adulation to springtime and the poet John Keats, and there seem
to be no obvious racial themes. In Bennets poem, Sonnet2 the persona lists many
natural things they are endeared to, such as rain and the smell of flowers. However, in the
last stanza the persona remarks Or Negroes humming melodies. / But dearer far than all
surmise / Are sudden tear-drops in your eyesimplying that of paramount importance
to the Harlem artist is to educate and humanize.
In conclusion, the four poets of the Harlem Renaissance I have examined used art
itself as a educative and humanizing tool. By embracing the cultural products of their
culture, they are able to re-assert their subjectivity and agency. Although there is
recognition of the economic hardship for African-Americans of the time, the movement
is nonetheless tempered by an emphasis on restraint and nonviolencefor being violent
would only dehumanize and degrade both parties. However, all this being said, it is
obvious that these poets fought an up-hill battle. As Langston Hughes says, Life for me
aint been no crystal stair, or, as Countee Cullen writes in Yet do I Marvel, Yet do I
marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

Tucker Harwood

Humanizing the Dehumanized

10/7/14

Bibliography
Gates, Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American
Literature. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. Print.
Lewis, David L., ed. The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. New York: Penguin,
1994. Print.