20 pages • 40 minutes read
The Weary Blues
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Race, Racism, and Color
The theme of race appears in the poem's title since “The Weary Blues” ties the poem to blues. Rooted in the Black experience, the blues is inseparable from racism, slavery, and the songs enslaved Black people sang—spirituals, field hollers, work songs, and country string ballads. The blues generally reflects the suffering and determination of Black people, and Black blues musicians like Bessie Smith, W. C. Handy, and Ma Rainey popularized the genre. Thus, before even reading the poem, Hughes brings up the theme of race by placing the word “blues” in the title.
In Line 2, the speaker touches on race with the word “croon,” which sounds like “coon”—a racial slur white people could have called the blues singer in the South, New York, or anywhere in the country. The speaker then makes the singer's race clear when they announce, “I heard a Negro play” (Line 3). The word “negro” is not an outright racial slur in the poem. In the 1920s, it was another term for Black people. Now, the word is much more fraught. However, in "The Weary Blues," the word confirms that a Black man is playing the blues.
In Line 5, the speaker introduces whiteness with “the pale dull pallor of an old gas light.” A lack of color has rather negative associations—it's sickly and not sharp. What contains color possesses power in this Lenox Avenue spot. Yes, the musician is sad and does a “lazy sway” (Lines 6, 7), but he’s forceful because with “his ebony hands on each ivory key / He made that poor piano moan with melody” (Lines 9-10). His Black (“ebony”) hands on the white (“ivory”) piano keys produce the song, so the Black musician is in control, and the white keys are under his domain.
The theme of race expands near the end of Stanza 1 and in Lines 25-30 when the speaker cites some of the lyrics that mix Southern dialect and African American Vernacular English. In Line 31, the speaker seemingly alludes to racism again with the word “crooned.” The simile at the end—where the speaker compares the sleeping man to a “rock or a man that’s dead”—furthers the theme of racism, emphasizing its dehumanization and literally deadly consequences.
Suffering, Pain, and Despair
The theme of suffering, pain, and despair is also evident in the title. These are “The Weary Blues,” so they’re blues produced by a taxing, burdensome, struggling life. In Lines 1-18, the speaker constantly alludes to the exhaustion and enervation brought about by suffering. The singer does a “lazy sway” (Line 6 and 7), the piano is “poor” (Line 10), the stool is “rickety,” the tune is “sad raggy” (Line 13), and the tone is “melancholy” (Line 17). Through the glum diction, the speaker emphasizes the present hardship of the Black musician. The privation extends to the musician’s environment, as the speaker depicts the space as rundown and worn out as the singer. In Lines 1-18, the speaker also uses the verb “moan” twice. This term ties into suffering as a person can moan due to anguish.
The speaker cites the song lyrics in Lines 19-22, and the musician’s suffering becomes more vivid. Now, it’s clear why he’s suffering. He’s in pain because he’s alone in the world and can’t seem to put his “troubles on the shelf” (Line 22). If the speaker could offload his burdens, their blues might be less weary.
In Stanza 2, the “Thump, thump, thump” (Line 23) relates to suffering as the thump sound could serve as a symbol for throbbing pain. The speaker then cites more of the blues musician’s lyrics to illustrate his distraught condition. They’re not happy, and they’re not receiving satisfaction. “I wish that I had died,” declares the performer (Line 30). The musician can’t escape his despair. Even when he’s asleep, his weariness haunts him and echoes in his head. The intense suffering immobilizes the musician and turns them into a staid rock or a dead person. Throughout the poem, the speaker feels so much. By the end, the musician feels nothing at all, as corpses and rocks have no active emotions or feelings.
The Power of Music
In Langston Hughes’ poem, the weary, pained, and exhausted Blues musician somehow manages to produce powerful music. Although the musician and his environment are rundown and distressed, the music itself remains forceful. Thus, in “The Weary Blues,” Hughes includes the theme of music—especially its power to animate, move, and stick with people.
Almost right away in the poem, the music calls the speaker into action since the speaker is “rocking back and forth” (Line 2) to the song. The song seizes the speaker and brings them to life. As for the musician—he does “a lazy sway” (Lines 6 and 7). The music moves him too—even if it does so in a lackadaisical manner. As the poem progresses, the force of the music on the musician accelerates. The musician made that “poor piano moan” (Line 10), so the musician and the piano both have power. The musician can still play the piano, and the piano can still express itself loudly. The exclamation marks—“O Blues!” (Lines 11 and 16) and “Sweet Blues!” (Line 14)—further the theme that blues music isn’t meek but a loud force. The hard “Thump, thump, thump” (Line 23) sound adds to the strength of the music.
In a sense, the music motors and energizes the musician. He is sorrowful and fatigued, yet the strength of the music leads him to sing “far into the night” (Line 31). Even when the musician isn’t singing, the powerful song sticks with him because it “echoed through his head” (Line 34). Here, music comes across as a ghost that’s haunting the singer, emphasizing its non-human, almost metaphysical powers over the sorrows and conventions of the mortal world.
Unlock all 20 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Langston Hughes
