Me and the Mule

Langston HughesFiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1959

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Racial Inequality

Racial inequality is at the heart of “Me and the Mule.” The poem introduces the mule as a symbol for the plight of African Americans: “My old mule, / He's gota grin on his face” (Lines 1-2). Because mules tend to be seen as obstinate creatures only fit for hard toil, this grin at first seems to be an overt marker of simplemindedness on the part of a beast of burden. The symbolic connection between the “grinning mule” and the speaker thus feels cruel and needless.

However, readers quickly see that Hughes is flipping the typical connotations of being a mule—and of being Black—on their head. He embraces the identification with the mule rather than rejecting it: “I’m like that old mule— / Black—and don't give a damn!” (Line 6). This makes it clear that the grin is doing something different in the poem. Despite the harsh treatment that the mule endures, it faces the world with a human expression that gives evidence to the intellect that its outward appearance might hide for those prone to bias. Like the mule, the speaker wants to prevent himself from internalizing the prejudice of the outside world, not giving “a damn” about racist views and proudly declaring himself to be “Black.”

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Nevertheless, this insistence on its own dignity and inner life has taken a toll on the animal: “He's been a mule so long / He's forgotten about his race” (Lines 3-4). Hughes specifies that the mule has been forced into its role as a load-bearer or laboring animal, and, as a result, the mule has been fighting against being stripped of its sense-of-self and pride entirely by the domineering force of society’s unfair and exploitative expectations. The emotional labor of maintaining his sense of self in the face of mistreatment has caused the mule—or, really, the speaker—to lose sight of the larger goal of racial uplift and activism. These two lines in particular point to the problem of racial inequality as the true focus of the poem.

Loss of Identity

Using the mule as a symbol for the effects of racial inequality in the United States, Hughes makes a bold statement about the loss of cultural identity. Like the mule, the African American speaker in the poem has had his identity stripped from him by a long history of exploitation. With the statement “He’s been a mule so long / He’s forgotten about his race” (Lines 3-4), Hughes asserts that exploitation of the mule has stripped it of its identity and its connection to those who share its racial background.

The poem’s third and fourth lines muddy the distinction between the mule and the speaker by using the human pronoun “he” and the term “race,” allowing readers to read these lines as actually referring to the speaker, a Black man whose efforts to hang onto his intellectual agency have had the deleterious effect that he has “forgotten about his race” (Line 4). Either the speaker’s racial identity has been lost because of society’s incorrect, stereotypical view of him, or the speaker feels guilty for not having forged more connections with other members of his racial category, creating power in numbers and mutual self-affirmation. Hughes warns of the dangers of losing identity due to racism, using the symbol of the mule to make a bold statement about the dehumanization of Black people by an exploitative, white socio-political establishment. However, the poem ends on a defiant note of reclamation of identity, as the speaker not only finds meaning in his link to the mule, but demands that others “take me / Like I am” (Lines 7-8).

Racial Pride

The final theme of “Me and the Mule” emerges at the end of the poem. After establishing the symbol of the mule, addressing racial inequality, and commenting upon the loss of identity and dehumanization suffered by African Americans in the United States, Hughes turns the poem towards empowerment. In the first two lines of the second stanza, Hughes writes, “I'm like that old mule—/ Black—and don't give a damn!” (Line 5-6). Suddenly, the poem reasserts the speaker’s humanity with the use of the powerful first-person pronoun. The speaker makes a bold declaration of his race, which marks the pride with which he owns his identity despite white society’s attempts to strip it away.

The final two lines of the poem further encourage racial pride, confronting readers via direct address with an aggressive second-person command: “You got to take me / Like I am” (Lines 7-8). This order leaves no room for argument. There is no question in Hughes’s mind what the right course of action is; the reader cannot deny the speaker’s right to his racial and human identity. The speaker accepts himself as he is, and the world at large must take him as he is as well—not as a common mule but as a Black man who is rightly proud of his race and personhood.