Heroic "hussies" and "brilliant queers": genderracial resistance in the works of Langston Hughes

Hughes's "Ballad of the Girl Whose Name Is Mud" evokes the voice of a whispering gossip who disapproves of a girl who dated "a nogood man." The last stanza gives voice to the experience of the "hussy" herself, through gossip:

... The hussy's telling everybody--

Just as though it was no sin--

That if she had a chance

She'd do it agin'! (Selected 149)

The "hussy" rejects gender constructs, which tell her she should be remorseful; instead, she shocks those around her by stating that "she'd do it agin'!" This type of resistance, grounded solidly in the societal notion that women express themselves primarily through their sexuality, portrays female sexual identity much as Black male identity is portrayed in "Scottsboro," as a political act. Similar sentiments recur in "S-sss-ss-sh!," which discusses unmarried, probably teenage, pregnancy. Hughes contrasts the natural imagery of birth with disapproval by family and neighbors:

The baby came one morning

Almost with the sun.

The neighbors--

And its grandma--

Were outdone!

But mother and child

Thought it fun. (Selected 134)

In simultaneously enacting several views of the birth, "Sh-sss-ss-sh!" promotes dialogue on gender issues in a polyrhythmic way. It interrogates our notions of female shame in an age when unmarried pregnancy held greater stigma than it does today.

As Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar have suggested in their analysis of women writers, Hughes lends a subversive quality to his "mad women." Imagery of nakedness is heavy in Hughes's discussion of women's identity struggles, suggesting an awareness of women's sexuality as a site of resistance. The sharp and mysterious "Strange Hurt," describes a female who seeks out storms from shelter, "fiery sunshine" from shade. Hughes concludes:

In months of snowy winter

When cozy houses hold,

She'd break down doors

To wander naked

In the cold. (Selected 84)

In "March Moon," Hughes uses irony to break down constructions of female sexuality, while connecting it with broad issues of power and inequality. The social construction of female shame is addressed through an ironic examination of the bright bare moon:

The moon is naked.

The wind has undressed the moon.

The wind has blown all the cloud-gar-

ments

Off the body of the moon

And now she's naked.

Stark naked.

But why don't you blush,

O shameless moon?

Don't you know

It isn't nice to be naked? (Selected 60)

As a poem about women, "March Moon" unveils the construction of female shame which represses female expression--sexually, spiritually, and intellectually. "March Moon" exposes the fallacy of "niceness" that clenches our desires, prefiguring Audre Lorde's comment that," as women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational thought. We have been warned against it all our lives by the male world.... The fear of our desires keeps them suspect and indiscriminately powerful" (53).

Hughes and Genderracial Resistence

Constructing naked space as a moment of potential power, "Strange Hurt" and "March Moon" speak to the need to break down oppressive social constructs, and addresses the power of expressing our desires without shame. In a Black gay context, particularly in the age of AIDS, the need to express desire has a particular resonance. Many feel the need to emphasize the erotic as a means of broad social comment on gender, race, and class oppression. Essex Hemphill connects the devaluation of erotic experience with narrow constructs of femininity and masculinity. In "Heavy Breathing," he comments on the "threadbare masculinity" he has "outgrown":