Hi fireends,
This blog is to share with you my views and thoughts on literature. Today I present my reading of Langston Hughes's poem "Cross"
My old man's a white old manAnd my old mother's black.
If ever I cursed my white old manI take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,I'm sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder were I'm going to die,
Being neither white nor black?
AnalysisCROSS
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Langston Hughes “Cross”, a poem in three stanzas of irregular rhyme, can be placed on equal plains with some of his renowned poems like “Ballad of the Landlord”. The poem explores the inner conflicts of a woebegone Afro-American born out of wedlock.
The title of the poem connotes three equally predominant meanings . First of all, the word ‘cross’which literally means hybrid connotes impurity of birth. Reminiscent of the crucifixion, the word 'cross' also metaphorically denote both tolerance and punishment. In the poem which centers on the inner-clashes of a man born to a black mother and a white father, the three above stated connotations of the title stand as a pointer to the poem’s central theme. It is believed that the life of the man portrayed in the poem is impure, as he is the son of a couple belonging to two mutually opposing groups in history—the white and the black. As far as the poetic persona is concerned, living the life of a ‘cross’ is as painful as being nailed on a cross. Every time he is punished by the conviction of his mind that he is neither a black nor a white. Leading a life, bearing all these humiliations is, no doubt, a tolerance. Speaking metaphorically, the speaker is on a cross road and he dose not know which way he has to choose. So, it can be said for certain that the title throws a light into the central theme of the poem—identity crisis.
Observing from a formalistic point of view, the first line of the poem itself is an ambiguity-creating one. In the opening line, the speaker says “my old man is a white old man”. As far a common reader is concerned, it is very difficult to infer who the old man is. It is only when we go through the entire poem that we understand the man the speaker refers to is his father. It also exposes the speaker’s hatred towards his father. The poem opens with the speaker addressing his father “a white old man”. No son, who likes his father very much, can call his father ‘a white old man’. This is a pointer to the speaker’s lack of love for his father. Above all, the expression ‘white old man’ draws the attention of the readers to the identity of the speaker’s father. In the first line, the speaker’s tone is a bit harsh and coarse. But when it comes to the second line, while speaking about the mother, the speaker becomes tender and mild. He reveals that his mother is a black. When a close reading of these two lines is done, it gets very clear that the speaker hates his father as much as he loves his mother. The italicized expression ‘my old man’ in the first line stands out from all the other lines in the poem. This is a conscious poetic device by which the poet depicts the white old father’s superiority and predominance over the speaker and his mother. Indirectly, the poetic persona provides the readers with the idea that begetting a child cannot be considered the sole reason for being called father. If the speaker had a ting of love for his father, he would have called the latter ‘my father’, instead ‘my old man’. Above all, it is quite surprising to note that nowhere in the poem the speaker uses the word father. Whenever he wants to refer to his father, he uses the term ‘old man’.
In the poem, the speaker never hesitates to bear his soul so that he says he used to curse the ‘white old man who begot him’. But the father being considered mightier and superior than the black, the speaker used to retract the curses he poured on the father out of inexorable anger.
The speaker’s hatred towards his father can be taken as a ramification of his Oedipus complex. Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, says every male child has an unconscious sexual desire for his mother and this desire is spiked with hatred towards the father. Now, for the poetic persona, father is a thorn in his flesh and he longs to get rid of him. In that sense, the speaker’s retract of the curses may be because he finds an alter ego of himself in his father. The black speaker’s hatred towards his white father can also be taken as a symbolic representation of the hatred of all the blacks towards the white colonial masters
In the second stanza, the speaker explores how much strong his emotional bound with his mother is. He says that if he ever wishes to curse his mother or thinks that if she were hell, he will feel a prick of consciousness for bearing that evil wish in mind. When we read between lines, it becomes very vivid that the kind of respect the speaker pretends to have for his father is out of fear, not out of strong filial love.
In the third stanza, the poem is brought to an end by presenting how far ‘the white old man’ is away from the speaker and his mother. Though the white man had shared bed with the black woman and begotten a child, he never led a conjugal life with her. The two expressions in the stanza are very important in eliciting this fact. They are ‘a fine big house’ and ‘a shack’. ‘A fine big house’ stands for the luxurious life the white father lived whereas ‘a shack’ for the out and out ignominious and miserable experiences the black mother went through. When the ‘white old man’ led a luxurious life in a palatial house, his wife was fighting against the fearful odds of life. The white breathed his last in ‘a fine big house, whereas the black mother in a shack.
Being a mortal, the speaker too will succumb to the mow of death. But he does not know whether his death is in a shack or in a fine big house. He is sure of one thing—he will be neither a black nor a white till he breathes his last. This statement of the speaker can be taken in two ways. The first connotation of the line is that the speaker is torn between two identities. The second meaning is that the speaker wants to become neither a black nor a white, but he wishes to be a good human being. The concluding line of the poem “I wonder where I’m goanna die/ Being neither white nor black?/ evokes a sense of tension in the minds of readers.
The use of colloquial level of language is another noteworthy formalistic feature of the poem. The speaker being an ordinary black, the ordinary language used in the poem very much suits to decorum.
The situation portrayed in the poem has some kind of similarities with the soliloquy of Edmund in William Shakespeare’s king Lear. In act one, scene two, Edmund the illegitimate son of Gloucester philosophizes over his bustardy. He calls himself ‘an honest madam’s issue’. But while speaking about the men who beget children in the short period between sleep and awake, Edmund becomes harsh and coarse.
.
+
Langston Hughes “Cross”, a poem in three stanzas of irregular rhyme, can be placed on equal plains with some of his renowned poems like “Ballad of the Landlord”. The poem explores the inner conflicts of a woebegone Afro-American born out of wedlock.
The title of the poem connotes three equally predominant meanings . First of all, the word ‘cross’which literally means hybrid connotes impurity of birth. Reminiscent of the crucifixion, the word 'cross' also metaphorically denote both tolerance and punishment. In the poem which centers on the inner-clashes of a man born to a black mother and a white father, the three above stated connotations of the title stand as a pointer to the poem’s central theme. It is believed that the life of the man portrayed in the poem is impure, as he is the son of a couple belonging to two mutually opposing groups in history—the white and the black. As far as the poetic persona is concerned, living the life of a ‘cross’ is as painful as being nailed on a cross. Every time he is punished by the conviction of his mind that he is neither a black nor a white. Leading a life, bearing all these humiliations is, no doubt, a tolerance. Speaking metaphorically, the speaker is on a cross road and he dose not know which way he has to choose. So, it can be said for certain that the title throws a light into the central theme of the poem—identity crisis.
Observing from a formalistic point of view, the first line of the poem itself is an ambiguity-creating one. In the opening line, the speaker says “my old man is a white old man”. As far a common reader is concerned, it is very difficult to infer who the old man is. It is only when we go through the entire poem that we understand the man the speaker refers to is his father. It also exposes the speaker’s hatred towards his father. The poem opens with the speaker addressing his father “a white old man”. No son, who likes his father very much, can call his father ‘a white old man’. This is a pointer to the speaker’s lack of love for his father. Above all, the expression ‘white old man’ draws the attention of the readers to the identity of the speaker’s father. In the first line, the speaker’s tone is a bit harsh and coarse. But when it comes to the second line, while speaking about the mother, the speaker becomes tender and mild. He reveals that his mother is a black. When a close reading of these two lines is done, it gets very clear that the speaker hates his father as much as he loves his mother. The italicized expression ‘my old man’ in the first line stands out from all the other lines in the poem. This is a conscious poetic device by which the poet depicts the white old father’s superiority and predominance over the speaker and his mother. Indirectly, the poetic persona provides the readers with the idea that begetting a child cannot be considered the sole reason for being called father. If the speaker had a ting of love for his father, he would have called the latter ‘my father’, instead ‘my old man’. Above all, it is quite surprising to note that nowhere in the poem the speaker uses the word father. Whenever he wants to refer to his father, he uses the term ‘old man’.
In the poem, the speaker never hesitates to bear his soul so that he says he used to curse the ‘white old man who begot him’. But the father being considered mightier and superior than the black, the speaker used to retract the curses he poured on the father out of inexorable anger.
The speaker’s hatred towards his father can be taken as a ramification of his Oedipus complex. Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, says every male child has an unconscious sexual desire for his mother and this desire is spiked with hatred towards the father. Now, for the poetic persona, father is a thorn in his flesh and he longs to get rid of him. In that sense, the speaker’s retract of the curses may be because he finds an alter ego of himself in his father. The black speaker’s hatred towards his white father can also be taken as a symbolic representation of the hatred of all the blacks towards the white colonial masters
In the second stanza, the speaker explores how much strong his emotional bound with his mother is. He says that if he ever wishes to curse his mother or thinks that if she were hell, he will feel a prick of consciousness for bearing that evil wish in mind. When we read between lines, it becomes very vivid that the kind of respect the speaker pretends to have for his father is out of fear, not out of strong filial love.
In the third stanza, the poem is brought to an end by presenting how far ‘the white old man’ is away from the speaker and his mother. Though the white man had shared bed with the black woman and begotten a child, he never led a conjugal life with her. The two expressions in the stanza are very important in eliciting this fact. They are ‘a fine big house’ and ‘a shack’. ‘A fine big house’ stands for the luxurious life the white father lived whereas ‘a shack’ for the out and out ignominious and miserable experiences the black mother went through. When the ‘white old man’ led a luxurious life in a palatial house, his wife was fighting against the fearful odds of life. The white breathed his last in ‘a fine big house, whereas the black mother in a shack.
Being a mortal, the speaker too will succumb to the mow of death. But he does not know whether his death is in a shack or in a fine big house. He is sure of one thing—he will be neither a black nor a white till he breathes his last. This statement of the speaker can be taken in two ways. The first connotation of the line is that the speaker is torn between two identities. The second meaning is that the speaker wants to become neither a black nor a white, but he wishes to be a good human being. The concluding line of the poem “I wonder where I’m goanna die/ Being neither white nor black?/ evokes a sense of tension in the minds of readers.
The use of colloquial level of language is another noteworthy formalistic feature of the poem. The speaker being an ordinary black, the ordinary language used in the poem very much suits to decorum.
The situation portrayed in the poem has some kind of similarities with the soliloquy of Edmund in William Shakespeare’s king Lear. In act one, scene two, Edmund the illegitimate son of Gloucester philosophizes over his bustardy. He calls himself ‘an honest madam’s issue’. But while speaking about the men who beget children in the short period between sleep and awake, Edmund becomes harsh and coarse.
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