Place, race and identity in Langston Hughes' "A Toast to Harlem"

Résumé du document

"A Toast to Harlem" is an extract from a volume of selections entitled The Best Of Simple which was published in 1961. The author, Langston Hughes, was born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902 and died in 1967. He is known as one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance, which was the African American artistic movement in the 1920s that celebrated black life and culture as well as racial pride. His prolific work was highly influenced by his life in New York City's Harlem. His literary works helped shape American literature and politics. Through writing Hughes conveyed his desire for equality; he condemned racism and injustice, and promoted African American culture.
Langston Hughes was famous as a poet during the period of the Harlem Renaissance, he is often remembered as "a Harlem Renaissance poet" but in addition to his work as a poet, Hughes was a novelist, columnist, playwright, and essayist. His brilliant career influenced the work of many other African American writers.

Extraits

[...] Our study will be three fold, in a first part we will see how Harlem is referred to in terms of place, then we will focus on the issue of race within the city and eventually we will show how hard it is to build one's identity within a racist society. Harlem in terms of Place As we know Harlem wasn't meant to be peopled by Black Americans but since the houses that had been built remained vacant, white people had no other choice than accepting to rent their houses to Black Americans (only those who could afford it since the prices were high). [...]

[...] and K.A. Appiah Amistad) 1993, pp. 167-212 - Maria Balshaw and Liam Kennedy, Urban Space and Representation, ed. by M. Balshaw and L. Kennedy (London: Pluto Press) 2000, pp. [...]

[...] Langston Hughes said: way to overcome race discrimination is to confront At the end of Toast To Harlem” Simple said: will have my own window to shoot from” on line 18, as if to foreshadow the Harlem riot of July 18 to July which occurred 3 years after the publication of The Best Of Simple. Bibliography - Langston Hughes, The Best Of Simple - Susan L. Blake, John In Harlem: The Urban Folktales of Langston Hughes” - Langston Hughes, Critical Perspective Past and Present, ed. by H.L Gates, Jr. [...]

[...] Well, the sidewalk is - and nobody pushes me on lines 24-25. This is the point made by Boyd: the sidewalk doesn't belong to anybody and this is the proof that unless you're white you do not own anything in Harlem. He wants to show that “cities exhibit distinctive geographies of social differences and power relations” and that it is through this that “urban identities are formed”. III/ Forging an Identity In Toast to Harlem” race and identity are closely linked and almost fusion, indeed it is through colour that people defines their identity, but place also plays a major role as many countries the city (often, a city) represents the symbolic order of national identity.” A dual identity Simple in the description of his origins is quite confused himself, and he seems to struggle to explain to Boyd what he really is: an Indian or a coloured Indian or just a black person. [...]

[...] Harlem as a refuge for the African Diaspora Throughout the text we have the feeling that cohabitation between blacks and whites is impossible for historical reasons, Simple expresses his fear of meeting white people in the street: am sorry white folks is scared to come to Harlem, but I am scared to go around some of them” on lines 54-55, and a few lines further he gives us an example of a white woman in the South who told him: get away from here because I am scared of you.” on lines 57-58. To what he responded: ) Lady am scared of you because you're white.” on line 61. Here we have elements which show us that neither the whites nor the blacks are ready to live together. [...]