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PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 1

Evil and Religion in Langston Hughes’ Tambourines to Glory

Harish Chander

Shaw University

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

-- John 8. 32

“The Bible is the Rock, and the Rock is the Truth, and the

Truth is the Light.” -- Simply Heavenly: 2.8. 236

Tambourines to Glory, written in 1956 and first produced on Broadway in

1963, is a gospel play with a difference. On one hand, it is a dramatization of the

eternal conflict between good and evil; on the other, it is a story of economic

privation, temptation, fall, and redemption. It is a play reverberating with musical

sounds of gospel songs, but it has its central action focusing on the problem of

evil, the Devil exploiting the weaknesses of persons to ruin them. As pointed out

by the author in his 26 July 1956 letter to his friend Arna Bontemps, “It’s a

singing, shouting, wailing drama of the old conflict between blatant Evil and quiet

Good, with the Devil driving a Cadillac” (Nicholas 344). This statement shows

that this play’s Devil is different from any other Devil. Nowhere in literature,

from miracle plays to morality plays and Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, and from

Goethe’s Faust to Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker” and Stephen
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 2

Benet Vincent’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” do we find the Devil given so

much importance that it is the Devil who introduces the play. Not only does the

Devil in Tambourines to Glory speak the prologue in both Act I and Act II, but to

hoodwink the congregation the Evil one goes through the mock ritual of baptism,

sings “New York Blues”(1.6. 310), and makes a fake confession that he was

fooled by the Devil to play, and “almost lost my immortal soul” (1.7. 320). In this

confession, the Devil seems to betray his modus operandi as to how he preys upon

vulnerable individuals by feeding their vanities. Nor does Hughes’ Devil bear any

significant resemblance to Esu, the Yoruba deity of mischief. In this play, there is

no compact of any kind with the Devil, either. Indubitably, Langston Hughes gives

the Devil’s persona the Hughes’ difference. Hughes’ play exposes how under the

influence of the Devil, certain pastors of the so-called “holiness” churches are

tempted to use dishonest devices to fill their own pockets. However, this

important aspect of the play that pertains to evil and the Evil One has not received

the critical attention it deserves, except for brief comments by Leslie Catherine

Sanders and by Wallace D. Best.

In her book titled The Development of Black Theater in America (1988),

Sanders refers to “[t]he duel between good and evil in this play [Tambourines to

Glory]” and likens the Devil in the play to the “trickster devil of black religion”

(116), but she does not expound her views. And Wallace D. Best in Langston’s

Salvation: American Religion and the Bard of Harlem (2017) shows the great
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 3

importance of religion in Langston Hughes’ writings, focusing mainly on Hughes’

religious orientation and abundance of religious themes he has dealt with. In his

discussion on Tambourines to Glory, Best seems to suggest that Hughes has not

made a clear distinction between good and evil. In Best’s own words, “Hughes

provided [in Tambourines to Glory] a sophisticated analysis of the very nature of

‘good’ and ‘bad’, viewing them as complicated and constitutive parts of the other”

(25). He does not clearly show how he has reached this inference, however. Best

points out that Tambourines to Glory went through several revisions on its way to

the final 1963 Broadway version, but he does not compare the different versions.

He observes that Buddy Lomax “was evil personified” and Buddy in the final

version “is a much more complex portrayal, alternately depicted as both a man and

the actual ‘Devil’” (189). He does not mention specifics of the changes this

character has gone through. A careful examination of Tambourines to Glory

reveals that Langston Hughes in this play conforms essentially to the Judeo-

Christian concept of evil, but at the same time “signifying,” to use Henry Louis

Gates’ term, upon depictions of evil and Evil One in earlier canonical literary

texts, giving his play the distinctive Hughes’ stamp.

The action of Tambourines to Glory takes place in Reed Sisters’

Tambourine Temple, a holiness church in Harlem of the 1950s that two women on

public relief start with altogether different purposes. The sincere, honest Essie

Belle Johnson aims to achieve financial independence and to save souls, and the
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 4

brash, lustful Laura Wright Reed to make her fortune and enjoy a flamboyant

lifestyle. Laura, who cares precious little for saving souls, confesses to Essie that

the Gospel Church is something they can collect on. These quite contrary

motives of the two ministers propel the play’s plot. However, the play has a

happy ending, with the self-serving minister repenting and coming back to the

fold, and the congregation forgiving her transgressions.

The Judeo-Christian concept of evil and the role of the Devil, the Evil One,

are defined by Augustine and Moses Maimonides. Evil is the negation of good,

and the Devil is the Spirit of Negation. As Augustine puts it in his Enchiridion:

… [T]hat which is called evil, when it is regulated and put in its own

place, only enhances our admiration of the good; for we enjoy and

value the good more when we compare it with the evil. For the

Almighty God, who, as even the heathen acknowledge, has supreme

power over all things, being Himself supremely good, would never

permit the existence of anything evil among His works, if He were

not so omnipotent and good that He can bring good even out of evil.

For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? (Ch.

11)

Augustine in the next chapter of the same work points out that God made

beings “good” but “not perfectly good” and as a result they “are liable to

corruption.”
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 5

Moses Maimonides, the twelfth century Jewish philosopher, echoing

Augustine, has this to say about evil in The Guide for the Perplexed:

All evils are negations…. [I]t cannot be said of God that he directly

creates evil … this is impossible. His works are all perfectly good.

He only produces existence, and all existence is good…. (Part III,

Ch. X)

And Maimonides in Part III, Chapter XIII of the same work adds:

…[T]he numerous evils to which individual persons are exposed are

due

to the defects existing in the persons themselves. We complain and

seek relief from our faults; we suffer from the evils which we, by our

own free will, inflict on ourselves and ascribe them to God, who is

far from being connected with them. (Part III, Ch. X111)

It is obvious from the aforementioned statements that Evil is negation of

Good and is not the creation of God, but God surely brings good out of evil.

However, these statements do not take into account the influence of Satan or the

Devil. While the Old Testament gives only a small role to the Devil, the New

Testament shows him as the chief of force of evil who rebelled against God and

was defeated and hurled into Hell with his cohorts (Revelation 12). It was Satan

who tried to tempt Jesus, after he had fasted forty days and nights, with all the
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 6

kingdoms of the world if he would worship the Devil. Jesus told Satan to go away

because “it is written, Thou shall worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall

thou serve” (Matthew 4). It is worth noting that Jesus enjoined his followers to say

the Lord’s Prayer: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”

(Matthew 6.13; Luke 11. 4). As pointed out by Aldous Huxley in The Devils of

Loudun, the Greek “tou ponerou” is masculine and should therefore be interpreted

as the Evil One, the Tempter”(174). Milton in his Paradise Regained deals

exclusively with the temptation of Christ by Satan in the wilderness, based on

Luke 4. 1-13 and Matthew 4.1-11. While Eve and Adam in Paradise Lost could

not resist temptation, Christ in Paradise Regained gives instruction in resistance.

Making the biblical account of Satan his basis and the Heavenly Muse his

inspiration, John Milton built the argument of his sublime Christian epic titled

Paradise Lost around the fall of man and its consequences. In Milton’s account,

Satan was an archangel who revolted against God when God made Jesus, his only

begotten Son, his vice-regent. Satan not only revolted, but by his lies also induced

other angels to follow him in defying God, and waging a war against God in

Heaven. As eloquently described by the poet in Paradise Lost, God threw Satan

and other rebel angels into Hell, the bottomless pit, to experience eternal

damnation. Since Satan understood that he couldn’t win against the Omnipotent,

he thought of taking revenge upon God by corrupting humans, Adam and Eve,

who were leading an idyllic life in Paradise. When Adam was away, Satan
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 7

assuming the form of a serpent snuck into the Garden of Eden and impressed upon

Eve that she would become like God by partaking of the fruit of the forbidden tree.

Foreknowing Satan’s mind, God sent the Archangel Raphael to warn Adam about

the impending danger, but Satan was able to exploit Eve’s vanity to prevail upon

her to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in direct defiance of God’s

command. Adam out of his love for Eve also took the fruit of the forbidden tree.

The resultant effect is that sin and death entered the world, and Adam and Eve

were expelled from Paradise.

In Paradise Lost, Book IV, Milton emphasizes Eve’s flaw, in her own

words, that brings about her fall: “A Shape within the watery gleam appeared /

Bending to look on me, …Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks /Of

sympathy and love; there I had fixed mine eyes till now, and pined with vain

desire” (IV, 460-466). Here, Milton is alluding to Ovid’s Narcissus who vainly

yearned for his own image reflected in the pool as well as to Eve’s flaw of vanity

that made her susceptible to Satan’s flattery. Thus, according to Milton, Eve and

Adam, whom God had made “Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall” (III,

99), ate the fruit of forbidden tree by their own choice, and were, thus, responsible

for their fall. In Areopagitica, Milton avers that persons who “complain of divine

providence for suffering Adam [and Eve] to transgress do not understand what

“freedom to choose” means (479). He firmly believes that protected virtue is no

virtue: “If every action which is good or evil in man [and woman] at ripe years,
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 8

were to be under pittance and prescription and compulsion, what were virtue but a

name”(479). Having no hope of regaining entry into Heaven, Satan tells the fallen

angels: “To do aught good never will be our task, /But ever to do ill our sole

delight” (I, 159-160). He further says: “If then his Providence/ Out of our evil

seek to bring forth good/ Our labor must be to pervert that end / And out of good

still find means of evil” (I, 162-165). Satan, henceforward, is going to follow the

policy: “Farewell Remorse! All good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my good” (IV,

109-110).

Langston Hughes has in Tambourines to Glory invested Laura Wright Reed

with the same flaw of vanity that Milton’s Eve has. Laura is vain of her physical

charms, her shapely legs and large breasts. Laura confesses to Essie, “I’m gonna

live fine, and look fine,” no matter the price she has to pay (1.5. 302). She adds,

“…you want to cramp my style. Well, you won’t. I’ll tell you now, Essie, I’m

getting a fur coat, a Cadillac, and buying a hi-fi set—for Buddy” (1.5. 302). Essie,

who has noticed Laura’s vanity, exclaims: “Laura, one of these days the Spirit is

going to strike vanity from your heart, lust from your body, and ----- (1.5. 302). It

is her vanity that makes Laura an easy target for the Devil’s trap. While Essie

wants to use the church for saving souls, Laura’s sole aim, like Chaucer’s

Pardoner’s, is to win silver. Just as Eve in Paradise Lost dreams of loving her

image in a pool, Laura during an afternoon nap dreams of fish, and that dream

gives her the idea of using biblical texts to give the winning lottery numbers. The
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 9

vain Laura raises the Scotch whiskey glass to “her own reflection in the mirror”

(2.1. 330). Buddy, the Devil, observes Laura’s vanity, and exploits this weakness

in her to sell tap water for Holy Water from Jordan, as well as give lottery

numbers based on biblical texts. Laura uses a clever strategy to compel people to

give, as she warns: “You’ll have no luck if you don’t give God His’n. Aw, let’m

clink! Let the holy coins clink!” (1.7. 318). Essie notices how Laura is being

influenced by Buddy and warns her against his company. Laura, who is obsessed

with Buddy, doesn’t listen to her warning, and goes deeper and deeper into the

Devil’s net, not knowing that Buddy is the Devil. Essie sees but doesn’t do

anything to restrain Laura. When Laura is selling bottles of “holy water” bottles or

giving lucky texts, Essie withdraws herself and goes to the anteroom for “pause”

meditation as a coping mechanism for Laura’s fraudulent behavior. She is perhaps

exercising her patience, believing that Laura will eventually come back to the

righteous path. The difference between Essie and Laura is that whereas Laura

yields to temptations, Essie is able to resist them. Essie says, “I wrestle with

temptation, too, Laura, in my heart. But somehow or another, I always did want to

try to be good. Once I thought being good was doing nothing, like you said, I

guess, so I done nothing for half my life. Now, I’m trying to do something—and

be good, too. It’s harder” (1.6. 307). However, Laura, under the influence of the

Devil, is not yet willing to change.


PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 10

As earlier indicated, Buddy, the Devil, speaks the prologue in both the acts

of the play. Buddy is called the leading man, and as the lights dim he introduces

himself to the audience as Big-Eyed Buddy Lomax. He says that he assumes

different names and various guises. He is not what he seems. Also, he can be any

skin color, dark or white. In the prologue to Act 2, Buddy again appears and

tells the audience that he is “Mephistopheles Beelzebub Devil, alias Satan—

nickname, Old Nick” (321). He adds that even “a devil has faults” (322), and his

fault is his greed. “The way to get any good man … on the Devil’s side,” he adds,

“is to put your hand in his pocket with something in it—money” (321). When

Essie tells Laura to pray over Buddy, Laura responds that instead of the Holy

Trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Buddy believes in the

“unholy trinity” of “ Love, loot, and likker”(2.1. 329). Buddy claims that he is

working for the white Marty, who never appears in the play. Buddy is clever

enough to point out to the Black church congregation that white Marty is his boss

because in the Civil Rights era Blacks, especially the followers of the Nation of

Islam, were given to believe that the white man was the devil because Blacks had

been victims of racial oppression by whites. It is noteworthy that in the 1959

interviews conducted by Louis Lomax, the Nation of Islam leader, Elijah

Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam’s chief spokesperson Malcolm X expressed

their views of whites in America. Muhammad believed that “black people were

divine and white people were devils.” He added, “Allah was a black man” (qtd. in
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 11

C. Lincoln 69). In the same interview, when asked if he believed that “all whites

were devils,” Malcolm X replied, “white people collectively were evil” (qtd. in A.

Banks 54). It is also significant that the interior of the church has a mural of the

Garden of Eden, which displays a brown skin Adam, strongly built like Joe Louis,

and Eve as chocolate Sara Vaughn, but the Devil as white (1.5. 299). That is the

additional reason for Buddy, the Devil, telling that he works for the white Marty,

even at the cost of being inconsistent.

It is interesting to note that both Essie and Laura claim to have been called

to found a new church. Essie suddenly rises, looks upward, and exclaims: “Right

now, tonight! Laura, I just got a vision. A voice tells me to take you up on this

[founding a new church]—and try to save you, too”(1.1.288). Whereas Essie

shares her vision with Laura in private, the exhibitionist Laura proclaims before a

crowd: “ Lemma tell you how I got the call. It was one night last spring with

Sister Essie here, right on the street, I saw a flash, I heard a roll of thunder, I felt a

breeze and I seen a light and a voice exploding out of heaven cried, ‘Laura

Wright,’ it said, ‘Take up the cross and follow Me!’” (1.2.289-290). She adds that

the Voice told her to come out on this corner and save the people (1.2. 290).

Essie and Laura by their impassioned preaching and spirited singing of

gospel songs bring sinners to the fold of the church, as testified by Deacon Crow-

For-Day and the drummer Birdie Lee, proving that God uses the evil persons like

Laura and even Buddy--the Devil-- to his own purposes. Both Crow and Birdie
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 12

testify how Sister Essie and Sister Laura have saved them. Dean Crow says that he

was a “dyed-in-the-wool sinner” before he joined Reed Sisters’ Temple. He

exclaims, “They done snatched me off the ship of iniquity on which I rid down the

river of sin…” (1.7. 316). Drummer Birdie testifies that Sister Laura and Sister

Essie “ preached and prayed and swung me into the hands of God!” and she said

“goodbye to sin” (1.7. 316-317). And Essie’s daughter Marietta declares her

determination to be worthy of God’s love, and that she wants to be “a flower in

God’s garden” (1.7. 314-315).

As for the Devil, he is not satisfied with perverting Laura, and he drops her

for a much younger woman, Gloria. However, before he does any physical harm,

Laura plunges Essie’s knife into Buddy’s back resulting in his death. Laura

implicates Essie because Essie’s knife was used to stab Buddy, so the murder

crime falls on Essie’s shoulders. However, Birdie Lee has witnessed Laura

stabbing Buddy and betrays Laura to the police. By then Laura has also

experienced a change of heart and confesses her crime. Thereupon, Essie is

released from the prison and Laura is thrown into prison. Essie’s prophecy about

Laura that “the Spirit is going to strike vanity from your heart, lust from your

body, and…” (1.5. 302) is proven true as the latter changes from a self-centered

individual to one who is sincerely remorseful about her past behavior. She is

released on bail and confesses her sins before the church congregation. Laura’s

moving confession that begins with “I have sinned” and ends with “Oh, pray for
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 13

me, Church! Sister Essie, all of you, I beg sincerely, pray” (2.6. 341-342) is the

high point of the play, and its supplicatory tone impresses the congregation. Essie

also forgives Laura and prays for her, celebrating Laura’s spiritual redemption.

For a better perspective on the problem of evil in Langston Hughes, it is

helpful to compare his treatment of evil in Tambourines to Glory and other gospel

plays and the musical Simply Heavenly (1957) by him, as well as in other church

plays with all-Black cast by other writers, most prominent among them being

Marc Connelly’s The Green Pastures (1930), which won him the Pulitzer Prize,

and James Baldwin’s Amen Corner (1954). In this regard, Henry Louis Gates’

theory of “signifying” is a useful guide. In Figures in Black (1987), Gates

propounds that literary texts engage in conversation with earlier texts, either to

support and reinforce their pet ideas or to criticize and undercut them. In his own

words, “[B]lack writers read and critique other black texts as an act of rhetorical

self-definition” (242). And in his essay “Introduction to The Signifying Monkey:

A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism” (1988), Gates points out:

“Whatever is black about black American literature is to be found in the

identifiable Signifyin(g) difference…. Lest this theory of criticism, however, be

thought of as only black, let me admit … that all texts Signify upon other texts, in

motivated and unmotivated ways” (344). Langston Hughes seems to believe that

evil is both internal and external. By internal evil, we mean the individual’s inner

propensities for evil, and by external evil, Satan, the Evil One, and his
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 14

representatives. The Devil has “collapsible horns” (The Prodigal Son 426), can

assume various guises, and is always on the prowl for vulnerable souls. In

Tambourines to Glory, the avowedly hedonistic Laura falls an easy prey to Buddy

Lomax, the Devil, not knowing that he is the Evil One, but the genuinely devout

Essie is able to resist the Tempter. Accepting the Word of God who died on the

Cross so that humankind has eternal life can, however, save even repentant sinners

like Laura. In The Prodigal Son (1965), Langston Hughes gives us his rendition

of the popular Biblical parable from the third Gospel, Luke 15, in a one-act play.

By not giving a locale for the story, the playwright universalizes the theme.

Succumbing to the blandishments of Jezebel, whom Exhorter refers to as the

“devil in drag” – which means a devil in women’s clothing (426), the prodigal son

squanders all his inheritance by his riotous living and “orgiastic” dancing with

harlots until he is reduced to absolute penury and is compelled to live with hogs

and eat husks with them (425). Still, Jezebel wouldn’t leave the Prodigal alone

and continues to entice him to come to the countryside, promising him a time of

his life. When the Prodigal finds himself in a state of abject misery and

hopelessness, Exhorter’s urging and Brother Callius’, Sister Lord’s, and Sister

Waddy’s testimonies of their being accepted by the Lord despite their sinful past

gives him hope and courage to resist the Devil’s new temptations. Thereupon, the

frustrated Jezebel disappears from the scene to look for new victims. In other

important Langston Hughes’ gospel plays, Black Nativity (1961) and The Gospel
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 15

Glow (1962), there are only passing references to the Devil. In Black Nativity,

Woman sings: “ Satan’s mad and I’m so glad/He missed the Soul he thought he

had” (358). Second, the Shepherd Ted warns: “If you live in sin, /When life doth

end, / Then who will you have but/The Devil for your friend? (365).” In The

Gospel Glow also, there are two references to the Devil. The Choir Brother sings:

“The Devil had a stake in me. /He would not let me go. /But Jesus came into my

life, /Oh, now what joy I know! (382).” And the Church Elder testifies: “He

(Jesus) cast out devils. / He restored life” (391). And in Simply Heavenly that

Hughes wrote almost contemporaneously with Tambourines to Glory, Mamie

admits to Melon who is obsessively drawn to her that there are times the Devil

“beckons” her, but she tells the Devil to be “on your way” (2.9.239).

In The Green Pastures, Marc Connelly, a liberal humanist, enacts Old

Testament Gospel stories with an all African American cast in the framework of a

Sunday school teaching by Mr. Deshee in a New Orleans Church. It is interesting

to note that this play does not cover the Fall of Man, but there is a mention of

Adam and Eve partaking of the fruit of the forbidden tree, as a result of which

“dey felt ver’ bad.” There is no scene of Satan tempting Eve, either. However,

God in his conversation with Gabriel indirectly refers to Satan’s doings: “I ain’t

never tol’ you de trouble I had gittin’ things started up yere. Dat’s a story in itself”

(Green Pastures, 656; Part Two: Scene One), but the playwright does not consider

it important to tell that story. God does, however, ask Gabriel to lean over the
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 16

brink of the “Big Pit” and “tell Satan he’s jest a plain fool if he thinks he kin beat

anybody as big as me.” In response, Gabriel says: “Yes, suh Lawd. Den I’ll spit

right in his eye” (657; Part Two: Scene One). Also, God in Heaven is riled by the

doings of the humans on the earth. A cleaning lady in Heaven confides in the

other cleaning lady that her brother who went down to fetch a saint found that

“most of de population down dere has made de debbil king an’ dey wukkin’ in

three shifts fo’ him” (655; Part Two: Scene One). It is safe to infer that Marc

Connelly’s play illustrates that the postlapsarian man is prone to fall into wicked

ways. Having listened to Cain’s explanation for killing his brother Abel, De Lawd

says to Cain, “Well, I ain’t sayin’ you right an’ I ain’t sayin’ you wrong” and asks

him to go away, get married and “raise some chillun,” as there “ain’t nothin’ to

make a man fo’git his troubles like raisin’ a family” (636; Part One: Scene Four).

Even though Connelly’s God calls Cain’s action

a crime, he forgives Cain. However, the play’s stereotypical portrayal of black

culture, especially in scenes in Heaven, was considered offensive by a number of

eminent Black intellectuals. Giving his impressions of The Green Pastures, Loftin

Mitchell wrote that “black blood flowed in those pastures as white knives ripped at

the Negro image”(qtd. in Craig 94).

In James Baldwin’s Gospel-tinged play titled Amen Corner, evil seems to

reside in the heart of its central figure who exploits the church tenets to show her

authority over the worshipers and church functionaries. Based on his personal
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 17

knowledge and experience in the Holiness churches, Baldwin in Amen Corner

dramatizes the life of Margaret Alexander, who, after giving birth to a stillborn

baby, leaves her Jazz musician husband, Luke, and “hides” with her son David in

the church, rising to the position of the pastor. In leaving her husband, she insists

that she has followed the directions of the Holy Ghost. She professes to be most

holy, free from all carnal desires, and expects the congregants to give up their all

to Lord if they wish to be saved. She preaches to her congregation: “… if your

mind ain’t stayed on Him, every hour of the day, Satan’s going to cause you to fall

(Amen Corner 1. 9).” Also, since she is “the Lord’s anointed,” no body has “the

right to sit in judgment on my life” (3. 87). Luke, who is terminally ill, re-appears

and the truth comes out that it was not Luke who left Margaret, but it was

Margaret who left him. It is instructive to bear in mind Paul’s admonition to

Timothy: “But if any [Christian] provide not for his own, and specially for those

of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (I

Timothy 5.8). The church elders who believe in the sanctity of marriage see

through Margaret’s religious hypocrisy, hold her responsible for the break-up of

her marriage, and find her unfit to be their spiritual leader. Ironically, at the

moment of her downfall, Margaret realizes what loving the Lord really means:

“To love the Lord is to love all his children—all of them, everyone! And suffer

with them and rejoice with them and never count the cost” (3. 88).
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 18

In his introduction to Five Plays by Langston Hughes, Walter Smalley

acclaims Tambourines to Glory as “at once the most serious and the most dramatic

of his comedies” (xv). In sharp contrast to Baldwin’s Margaret Alexander, whose

religiosity knows no bounds, Langston Hughes has in Laura Wright Reed painted

the picture of a most blatant religious charlatan; however, both Margaret and

Laura are selfish at their core, and they have little empathy, as is evident from

their attitude toward their suppliants. The two central figures of Tambourines to

Glory may have been Hughes’ response to Margaret’s assertion that “[y]ou can’t

love the Lord and flirt with the Devil” (Amen Corner 3. 87). This is because in

Essie Hughes portrays the one who sincerely loves the Lord and in Laura the one

who claims to love the lord and flirts with the Devil. Langston Hughes understood

the impact of religion on African Americans; he also knew that effective sermons

were those supported by gospel choirs. To quote Langston Hughes, “… they

[singers)] know just when to sneak in a hum or moan a song behind the minister’s

words to heighten a sermon’s dramatic values or embellish a Bible tale he may be

telling” (353; Collected Works of Langston Hughes, vol. 6). He only deplored the

misuse of religion for personal gains and self-aggrandizement. Significantly, the

Devil admits to his dismay that “... some churches don’t have sense enough to be

crooked. They really try to be holy--and holiness don’t make money” (1.6. 303-

304). As Hughes’ biographer, Arnold Rampersad puts it: “Religion meant a lot to

Langston… [What he] hated was ‘dishonesty in the church’” (Life of Langston
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 19

Hughes 2. 370). Langston Hughes seems to agree with Essie in her statement:

“Religion’s got no business being made into a gyp game” (11.5. 342). In her 1980

interview, Rosetta Le Noire, who played Essie in the 1963 Broadway rendition of

the play, remembers Langston Hughes with fondness and asserts that he never

meant to ridicule the church and those “who took it that way were sadly mistaken”

(qtd. in McLaren 86). In this regard, Langston Hughes can be well compared to

Moliere who was misunderstood as attacking the Catholic Church in his portrayal

of Tartuffe in the comedy of that title. Clearly, then, Hughes’ opposition is not to

the Gospel churches, but to their being taken over by unscrupulous pastors.
PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 20

Works Cited

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Best, Wallace D. Langston’s Salvation: American Religion and the Bard of

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Connelly, Marc. The Green Pastures. Modern English Readings, 3rd ed by Roger

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---. “Introduction to The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American

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PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 21

The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments in the King James

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Hughes, Langston. Tambourines to Glory in The Collected Works of Langston

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---. Tambourines to Glory in Five Plays by Langston Hughes, edited with an

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McLaren, Joseph. “From Protest to Soul Fest: Langston Hughes’ Gospel Plays”

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Nicholas, Charles A. Arna Bontemps—Langston Hughes Letters. New York:

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Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes, 2 vols, OUP, 1986-1988.


PAC Postscript Chander: Evil and Religion 22

Sanders, Leslie Catherine. The Development of Black Theater in America:

From Shadows to Selves. Baton Rogue: Louisiana State UP, 1988.

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