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Langston Hughes’s “Me and the Mule” makes a powerful statement in few words. With the intense focus on rhythm and sound that Hughes and other Harlem Renaissance poets are known for, “Me and Mule” comments on the dehumanization inherent in racism and the importance of having pride in one’s racial identity and insisting on one’s dignity in the face of mistreatment or societal prejudice. “Me and the Mule” uses the figure of the mule, a common symbol associated with enslaved people, poor people, and laborers, to address Racial Inequality and call for Racial Pride.
The poem opens with the speaker’s smiling beast of burden: “My old mule, / He's gota grin on his face” (Lines 1-2). The image is immediately striking because of its anthropomorphism (giving human characteristics to nonhuman objects or animals). Mules are domesticated for heavy labor, and are typically thought of as stubborn and intellectually limited. Thus, it is surprising that the speaker’s mule grins—we don’t know why this creature is capable of human expression. One reading of the image of the mule is that it stands for an unintellectual Black laborer only capable of hard physical labor; in this interpretation, the grinning mule is a dehumanizing comparison to a Black worker.
By Langston Hughes
Children’s Rhymes
Langston Hughes
Cora Unashamed
Langston Hughes
Dreams
Langston Hughes
Harlem
Langston Hughes
I look at the world
Langston Hughes
I, Too
Langston Hughes
Let America Be America Again
Langston Hughes
Mother to Son
Langston Hughes
Mulatto
Langston Hughes
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life
Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
Not Without Laughter
Langston Hughes
Slave on the Block
Langston Hughes
Thank You, M'am
Langston Hughes
The Big Sea
Langston Hughes
Theme for English B
Langston Hughes
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
Langston Hughes
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes
The Ways of White Folks
Langston Hughes
The Weary Blues
Langston Hughes
Tired
Langston Hughes
African American Literature
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American Literature
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Books About Race in America
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Books on U.S. History
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Civil Rights & Jim Crow
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Contemporary Books on Social Justice
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Diverse Voices (High School)
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Diverse Voices (Middle Grade)
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Equality
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Harlem Renaissance
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Poetry: Perseverance
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Pride & Shame
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Short Poems
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