Afro-American Quest of Existence to Essence: Semiotic Interpretation of Langston Hughes Poetry

Abstract

Langston Hughes, one of the pioneers of Harlem Renaissance, through his poetry awoke his nation to fight with the circumstances, to claim their lost identity and to trace their old civilization. He made them realize their mode of being and search for the sublime objective of life. The present study aimed to analyze how Langston Hughes’s poetry highlights the quest of Afro-American from existence to essence with its unique connection to semiotics. Sartre’s theory of Existentialism is combined with Saussure model of semiotics through the method of theoretical triangulation to observe the journey of Afro-Americans from Existence to essence in semiotic manner. Qualitative mode of inquiry was applied to find out the answers to the research questions. Textual analysis proved that Langston Hughes poetry exhibits that he was aware of use of semiotics to express his existentialist philosophy. The study is significant in a sense that it investigates Black’s problem of being from the level of existence to essence which passes through the stages of freedom of choice and responsibility from semiotic perspective.

Keywords: Existentialism, Semiotics, Langston Hughes, Black civilization, Sartre’s Existentialism