The Use of Laughter in Poetry by Langston Hughes Essay -- Biography Bi

The Use of Laughter in Poetry by Langston Hughes Jessie Fauset explains in her essay The Gift of Laughter that black comedy developed not as a method for blacks to make people laugh, but as a necessary emotional outlet for black people to express their struggles and hardships. The "funny man" took on a much more serious emotion than appeared on the surface level. Comedy was one of the few means black people had available to them to express themselves. The paradoxical definition of laughter is applicable to all human beings; the limited means of expression is unique to those in an inferior place in society, such as the black Americans of the Harlem Renaissance. In a sense, what makes the struggles represented by the black comedian comic is the white audience member's ability "to retain mastery over himself and the situation" (Swabey 184). The white audience can laugh at the struggles and hardships on stage because of their refusal to accept the role they have played in the oppressions that caused them. Marie Collins Swabe y also writes in her book Comic Laughter that "By uncovering neglected hypocrisies, illusions, vanities, and deceptions in the behavior of persons and societies...while making us laugh, also removes in part our blindness with regard to certain factual and moral weaknesses in mankind" (11). Generally speaking, comedy makes us aware of certain character flaws. Fauset entertains this idea in her essay by wondering, "...if this picture of the black American as a living comic supplement has not been painted in order to camouflage the real feeling and knowledge of his white compatriot" (161). Whether or not the black comedy of the Harlem Renaissance caused an epiphany for the white audience is not cl... ...nd His Continuing Influence. Ed. C. James Trotman. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1995. 119-129. Phelps, Thomas C. "An Introduction to Arnold Rampersad." Langston Hughes: The Man, His Art, and His Continuing Influence. Ed. C. James Trotman. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1995. 19-34. Rampersad, Arnold, ed., and David Roessell, assoc. ed. The Collected Poems ofLangston Hughes. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Simpson, J.A., and E.S.C. Weiner, eds. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd Edition. Vol. VIII. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Swabey, Marie Collins. Comic Laughter. Archon Books, 1970. Tracy, Stephen C. "Langston Hughes: Poetry, Blues, and Gospel--Somewhere to Stand." Trotman, C. James, ed. Langston Hughes: TheMan, His Art, and His Continuing Influence. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1995: 51-61.