Critical Source:
- Ostrom, Hans. Langston Hughes: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1993.
Discussion starters
- Ostrom says this story is "full-blown satire" (12). Do you agree?
- Of what importance is it that Lesche was a former circus performer?
- In calling this story Swiftian, Ostrom claims that this story shows "a more complicated phase of expolotation" (13) which he believed Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston identified with the Harlem Renaissance. How is the story like Swift's work and what historical targets do you see?