20 pages • 40 minutes read
Langston HughesThe Weary Blues
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1926A 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
The Dual Meaning of “Croon”
The word "croon" appears twice in “The Weary Blues.” A literal reading finds nothing amiss with the word. The speaker is “rocking back and forth to a mellow croon” (Line 2), and the musician “crooned that tune” (Line 31) because “croon” means to sing softly and gently. Thus, “croon” represents music and the musician’s type of singer.
Yet “croon” sounds similar to a racial slur. In “The Coon Caricature” (2000) the sociologist David Pilgrim says the epithet is "one of the most insulting of all anti-black caricatures.” An abbreviation of “raccoon,” the term dehumanizes Black people, and ‘portrays them as a lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate, and buffoon.” In "The Weary Blues," the speaker labels the sway of the blues performer “lazy” (Lines 6 and 7) and describes him as “a music fool” (Line 13), which, in this interpretation, is not a compliment.
The description of the musician links to this pejorative term, so the word “croon” suggests a double-edged meaning, calling forth both the soothing, musical connotations of the word, as well as the underlying racism and prejudice that reduces complex humans to simple stereotypes and roles, like the soulful blues singer. Hughes’ words emphasize the weariness of someone who feels like an object—“like a rock” (Line 35)—which can drive them to the grave. Ultimately, Hughes subverts the racist symbol and reaffirms the humanity of the musician via his complex emotions. The singer might “croon,” but he’s not a racial slur. Hughes brings him to life as a human being with feelings, thoughts, and worries like any other person.
The Symbolism of the Moon and Stars
In Langston Hughes’ 1947 essay, “My Adventures As a Social Poet,” he talks about the moon. “The moon belongs to everybody,” he says, “but not this American earth of ours. That is perhaps why poems about the moon perturb no
one but poems about color and poverty do perturb many citizens.” Of course, in “The Weary Blues,” the moon and the stars disappear—they “went out” (Line 32). The absence of the moon and the stars represents the disturbing core of the poem. “The Weary Blues” is not a cheery, bright, anodyne text, so the moon and the stars are out of place. They represent a universality and idealism that’s not a part of the experience of the blues singer in Harlem. The musician's deep pain and sorrow blots out the fairytale-ish symbols. The musician’s life isn’t romanticized, and the nullified stars and moon reinforce the gritty pain of the poem. It’s as if these innocuous symbols can’t handle the poem’s bleak message “about color and poverty.”
Alternately, the stars and moon might symbolize the power of the musician. So long as the musician performs his forceful song, the stars and moon are with him. While playing the piano and singing, the musician shines like the stars and the moon. He’s as captivating and magnificent as them. However, once the stars and moon exit, the musician, in the next line, “stopped playing and went to bed” (Line 33). It’s as if the musician followed the actions of the stars and moon. They went away, so the musician had to go away too. The musician's proximity towards the stars and moon turn him into both a sight to see and, conversely, not to see. Similar to the stars and moon, the musician can't stay visible forever.
The Pain and Relief of Death and the Rock
The rock and the dead man represent pain. After a night of expressing his loneliness and sadness, the musician “slept like a rock or a man that’s dead” (Line 35). These are things that can’t feel—they lack consciousness and human emotion. Their absence of feeling juxtaposes the demonstrative feeling of the musician and his song. In the song, the musician expresses an array of emotions—from isolation to unfulfillment. The sharpness of his pain turns him into a rock or a corpse. It’s as if he’s feeling so much that he tips the scale into a state of non-feeling. The sheer amount of distraught emotions is transformative. It turns the musician into things that preclude afflictions like loneliness and unhappiness. Thus, in a roundabout way, the rock and corpse come to symbolize the speaker's sharp pain.
Conversely, the rock and dead man can also represent a temporary respite from the troubles of the world. Since the man is asleep, he’s like a rock or a dead man. Yes, these things are dehumanizing, but the link to death and objects also means that, for the moment, the musician doesn’t have to feel pain or isolation. Whether it’s as a corpse or rock, the musician, for the time when he’s asleep, can escape his misery and find some relief as he turns into things that are no longer a part of the living human world that weighs heavy on him. The wish the musician expresses in Line 30–"I wish that I had died"—manifests in the final line, so the rock and dead man symbolize a break from the burden of conscious existence.
Related Titles
By Langston Hughes
