The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Essay Example

In “The Norton Anthology of African American Literature,” there are many different examples of African American culture through the use of story and song. Two such examples in the book are gospel songs, and blues. Although these two forms of music are very different in their tone, they share a common theme of spirituality, loneliness, and triumph over struggle (or the possibility of it). This essay will compare and contrast the gospel song, “The Little Light of Mine,” and the blues song, “Hellhound on my trail”. These two songs will be compared and contrasted in the following ways: tone, subject matter, relevance to African American culture.

The song “The Little Light of Mine,” is a gospel song written by Harry Dixon Loes. It was instituted as a Negro Spiritual taking it’s content from a verse in the bible, Matthew 5:16, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your fine works and give glory to your Father who is in the heaven.” This was a significant verse for negro spirituals as it extolled the use self-importance during a time when such identity and self-reliance was not afforded to this population of people. In archetypal symbolism, light represents religious awareness, life, and intelligence. In the gospel song then, the importance of the candle become endemic of being a bright light, or sharing one’s light with the world. This seems counter-intuitive as the song seems to be requesting the singer to share with everyone without prejudice, which would have meant the singer being required to share with those that brought grievances against them. This theme, however, fits with the idea of archetypal knowledge, meaning that the singer needs to enlighten the people who’ve mistreated them. This falls into the religious theme of turning one’s cheek. Thus, although the words of the song may connote an idea of sharing it also wants the singer to combat darkness (i.e. ignorance, in this case, racism). This can be found in the line, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…” which means that the light, a person’s soul or intelligence will be allowed to be lit, and be bright, and be able to be shared with the world. It seems that the gospel songs, or negro spirituals are about forgiveness, or even about how to change the course of civil injustice.

In comparison to this, blues songs, while also about sharing (in most cases sadness or loneliness) extol a certain amount of negative emotion. While the gospel is about being inclusive (e.g. of a society or of one another) blues songs are about being exclusive. Although the theme of loneliness is prevalent in these songs, it is a personal sadness and does not follow the same theme of forgiveness that gospel songs (e.g. This Little Light) create. One blues song that’s endemic of this isolation is “Hellhound on my Trail,” made popular by Robert Johnson in the 1930’s when he was king of the Mississippi Delta. The legend goes that Johnson sold his soul to the devil in order to be a great and famous blues guitarist. This song then, stands in stark contrast to the hope of the gospel song, “This Little Light of Mine.” While both do give hope (hope of mankind changing through sharing intelligence vs. hope of being a great musician) there is a fine-line difference between these two different types of hope.

Johnson’s blues song is about a willingness to give up his soul in order to gain something corporeal while the gospel song is about being willing to engage one’s soul with humanity in order to bring about a cultural change in the way things are (knowledge about prejudice/racism). Johnson’s song (done with a guitar and vocal, a slide guitar actually, something that’s prevalent among blues guitar players) depicts the story of a man who travels around but pursued by some force, in the song’s case, a hellhound. A hellhound was a creature that would pursue people who had done a deal with the devil (their soul in exchange for something they desire) and the devil is now collecting: “I got to keep moving on, I got to keep moving on…the blues falling down like hail,…and the day keeps worrin’ me, there’s a hellhound on my tail, hellhound on my trail…” It seems like the gospel song is more about finding peace and acceptance, while the blues song is about running from something.

Both songs offer a cultural peek into the African American community. They are representative to two different sides of that community: religion (prevalent in both songs though in far different capacities) as well as ideas of the self. It seems that the gospel song presents an idea of the greatness of self that is innate, is found as a “light” that needs to shine, while the blues song is about trying to be great (meaning that greatness isn’t innate in a person). Both songs’ religious connotations ties them strongly together despite them reflecting different sides of religion. The gospel song encourages the positiveness of the self while the blues speaks toward the haunted person. In fact, in blues songs, this idea of being haunted by unfulfilled possibilities are pervasive through all of the songs, while the gospel songs speak more toward finding hope.

Both of these songs speak toward how the African American community expresses their angst, hope, and ability to persevere. It is this perseverance that ties these two songs together. It is their idea of hope and communicating that hope to their audience that makes these songs so endemic of not only African American culture, but their heritage. These songs present the listener with the idea that what is being expressed is African American’s ability to put their hope and struggles to songs in order to reach out to their community and to try and dispel loneliness through these songs.

Works Cited

Gates, H. L., Smith, V., Andrews, W. L., Benston, K., Edwards, B. H., Foster, F. S., McDowell, D. E., O’Meally, R. G., Spillers, H., & Wall, C. A. eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014. Print

The New Jerusalem Bible. Ed. Susan Jones. New York: Doubleday, 1985. Print.