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Chapter 4 - Love at a Distance in Selected Letters by Langston and Carrie Hughes

from Part I - Singing America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2022

By
John Edgar Tidwell  and
Carmaletta M. Williams
Edited by
Vera M. Kutzinski  and
Anthony Reed
Vera M. Kutzinski
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
Anthony Reed
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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Summary

The existing scholarship on Langston Hughes contains few detailed studies of his relationship with his mother and its effect on his creative writing. This chapter addresses this omission by looking at the tension between Langston and his mother, Carrie. It is rooted in the call made several years ago by the eminent biographer Arnold Rampersad to infuse Black life writing with more psychological analyses. Using Murray Bowen’s family systems theory as a heuristic, the chapter explores the central issue of their familial arrangement: how physical and emotional distance affected their love for each other and the makeup of his art.

Keywords

lovefamily systems theorypsychologyMurray BowenCarrie Hughes
Type
Chapter
Information
Langston Hughes in Context , pp. 42 - 50
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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