76 pages • 2 hours read
Langston HughesNot Without Laughter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1930A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Laughter
Laughter appears throughout the novel as an important motif related to the theme of race and the response to racism in the novel. White laughter appears in the novel several times, including the laughter of whites who laugh at a minstrel act in a vaudeville show, the laughter of a racist white Southerner who tries to force Sandy to dance for him, and the laughter of white children who laugh as they witness their black peers being ridiculed and discriminated against. The laughter of whites reflects white privilege and the power of white supremacy.
There are also several varieties of black laughter as well. Black laughter appears in the novel most frequently among working-class African Americans who have rejected the power of white supremacy and black respectability to define their experiences. The Bottoms, the black working-class neighborhood in Stanton, is frequently filled with this kind of laughter, and Sandy also hears it when he sees blues and ragtime being performed and enjoyed by African Americans who refuse to be shamed for their poverty.
While respectable black figures like Tempy and her husband, Mr. Siles, see the laughter as African Americans’ fulfillment of stereotypes of African Americans as happy-go-lucky and feckless, Sandy comes to understand by the end of the novel that laughter is a healthy psychological response to racism.
Sleds and Tempy’s Fancy Storybook
An important turning point for Sandy in the novel is his recognition of the impact of poverty and racism on his life and the lives of the adults in his life. Sandy’s greatest wish one Christmas is to receive a Golden Flyer sled as his gift. His family’s finances are precarious, however, and Annjee is forced to send the money she had been saving up for his gift to Harriet, who is stranded in Memphis. However, Annjee and Hager convince a neighbor to make an awkward, homemade sled for Sandy. Although Sandy hates the sled and is ashamed of it, he pretends to like it because he doesn’t want to hurt Hager and Annjee’s feelings. He rejects the illustrated storybook from Tempy once he realizes that she looks down on his family for their poverty. His responses to the gifts symbolize his increasingly sophisticated understanding of the way his life is shaped by race and reflect his coming of age.
Harriet’s Watches
Despite her very tight finances, Hager gives her youngest daughter a tiny, old-fashioned watch for her sixteenth birthday. This act of generosity reflects Hager’s recognition that their lives lack the beauty and wide range of experiences her daughter desires. Harriet pawns the watch to fund her first failed attempt at escape, running away with the carnival, so the watch represents for her the desire for adventure and her lack of sufficient means to succeed by normal channels. Harriet regains the watch after her dying mother redeems it for her. Afraid of allowing her mother to see how her life has devolved from Hager’s values, Harriet hides a flashy watch purchased with her sex work. The contrast between the watches represents the contrasts between the two women’s values and generations.
Jimboy’s Guitar
Jimboy is a talented blues guitarist who never pursued a career as a musician despite receiving advice to do so by William C. Handy, the “father of the blues.”Jimboy brings the blues into the lives of his family and, most especially, Harriet, who uses it to go much further than her brother-in-law. The guitar is a constant in Jimboy’s life until he breaks it on a streetcar in Detroit, Michigan. The guitar suggests various meanings, including the role of music in African-American culture, Jimboy’s wasted potential, and the impact of racism on the opportunities available to African-American men.
Perfume
Perfume appears several times in the novel. Harriet puts on perfume before going out on an all-night date with her boyfriend despite Hager’s insistence that she stay home. The scent of her cheap violet perfume after she returns to Stanton and begins work as a sex worker is so noticeable that even Sandy (still a boy) picks up on the sexual implication of its rank smell. Sandy also smells sickeningly sweet perfume when he is pursued by a pedophile on his first night on the streets of Chicago. Perfume is associated with sexuality throughout the novel.
Related Titles
By Langston Hughes
