Satire in the work of Langston Hughes

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to appraise Langston Hughes's achievement as a satirist. Beginning with a discussion of Hughes's satiric content, Chapter I examines the way in which certain elements of his work--humor, ridicule, irony, and social criticism--are modified by a tone of attack. In addition to the tone, Hughes's satire is informed by certain structural devices that recur with some consistency. Chapter II discusses "the American dream" as the satiric norm against which Hughes balances his satire. Attention is given to his treatment of the deferral of the dream for black Americans. The next chapter explores Harlem as the satiric scene. Parallels are drawn between Hughes's Harlem and the London of eighteenth-century satire. The fourth chapter is a study of the various personae that Hughes employs, with special emphasis on Jesse B. Semple as satiric hero. The final chapter is a study of "Jim Crow" or bigotry as the ultimate vice or object of Hughes's attack.