¶ … play "Tambourines to Glory," by Langston Hughes. Specifically it will discuss the significance of the work, and what Hughes was trying to say through his fiction.
TAMBOURINES TO GLORY
This is a comic book about religion and morals, not often subjects of comedy. Critics have often called Hughes dramatic works "folk plays," and "Tambourines to Glory" is no exception. In fact, Hughes himself said about the work in the program notes, it was "a fable, a folk ballad in stage form... -- if you will, a comic strip, a cartoon -- about problems which can only be convincingly... presented very cleanly, clearly, sharply, precisely, and with humor'" (Peterson 346).
The protagonists are two women who pose as sisters and decide to start a church, not for spiritual salvation or a great belief in the Lord, but for money. "Money! I sure wish I had some. Say Essie, why don't you and me start a church like Mother Bradley's? We ain't doing nothing else useful, and it would beat Home Relief. You sing good. I'll preach. We'll both take up collection and split it" (Hughes 19-20).
They are extremely successful in their endeavor, in fact, they begin partnership with "Big-Eyed Buddy Lomax," a streetwise hood who cheerfully admits at one point he is really the Devil, and becomes Laura's boyfriend.
Essie and Laura are both strong individuals - Essie, in her goodness, and Laura, in her predilection toward chicanery. Symbolically, they represent two very real aspects of all revivalist, perhaps all religious, movements. The saint and the charlatan often live side by side, even in established religions, and sometimes exist in...
Langston Hughes method of exposing racism and gender racism in Five Plays is to simply tell it like it is, to show all aspects of black life, good, bad, beautiful, ugly, and everything in between. He depicts forms of racism such as oppression, miscegenation, violence, dishonesty in the name of religion, illegal profiteering playing upon the hopes and dreams of the poor, at the same time he glorifies the love,
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