Harlem Renaissance Literature Essay

The Purpose of Harlem Renaissance Literature and its Affect on Others For several years after the Civil War, African Americans struggled to receive equality, especially those of the lower class. Many writers saw the art of literature as a way to voice their opinion in society and be heard through their stories and poems. Harlem Renaissance writers of the early 20th century utilized their art as a poetic voice to instill racial pride in others and help strive for equality. They knew equality would take time so they used their writing to go beyond art and create infancy for social change. Using emotions such as laughter and sorrow helped black writers reach through to their readers. Writers such as Langston Hughes and Jessie Redmon Fauset were

This style of writing and voice was what Mike Chasar called “Black Laughter.” Laughter was an emotion some writers found a successful way to reach their readers. In his article “The Sounds of Black Laughter and the Harlem Renaissance,” Chasar says that black laughter, “challenged the acoustics of white power and served as a weapon in the struggle for political and social justice” (58). He notes that the use of this black laugh was to go where no African American body could or would not go and defy the control of public space by whites (Chasar 58). Chasar provides many examples of this “Black Laughter” in popular African American writers such as Claude McKay, Sterling Brown, and Langston Hughes. They are all popular writers during the Harlem Renaissance who strongly show in poetry and writing the use of black laughter in their

Chasar points out that Brown was referring to a law at that time in certain areas that if an African American wanted to laugh in public, that African American had to stick his or her head in a designated barrel (69). Brown is clear that he doesn’t like restrictive laws like these; he is speaking out against the whites that made the law and is doing so through emotion in his literature. The accent and slang used in the poem illustrates the black laughter Chasar speaks of. Sterling Brown uses slang such as “telefoam” instead of telephone and “de” instead of the to create black dialect in the poem. This provides the poem the “black acoustic” in its message. This acoustic gives the black laughter the right emotion to reach out to the readers and inspire them in their purpose. Writers such as Brown created humorous poems such as this one to voice their opinion and speak out against whites in a joking