Moreover, the very title of the poem describes the suffering of the African-American race and its struggle for an identity. “The Cross” shows the dilemma of African American identity as a heavy burden or cross that African Americans are forced to carry. At the same time, the title associates the suffering and struggle of the black race with the crucifixion of Christ. Another poem that revolves around the same theme is Hughes' "Mulatto", considered a highly dramatic confrontation between a white father and his unacknowledged bastard. mulatto son: I am your son, white man! Georgia twilight And the turpentine woods. One of the pillars of the temple fell. You are my son! What the hell! The moon above the turpentine woods The southern night Full of stars Big big yellow stars. What is a body but a toy? Juicy bodies of black girls Blue black Against black fences. . .What is your mother's body? A black night, A black joy, A yellow bastard boy (Hughes 160-61) At the beginning of the poem, the impression of passion and violence is evoked through the staccato screams of the speakers. The son-father conflict immediately emerges: “I am your son, white man!” at which point the father's refusal is ready: “You are my son! / Damnation!". This response implies the father's direct accusation of the intrinsic inferiority of his mulatto son. The father continues to insult both the “bastard son” and his mother, whose bodies for him are nothing more than a “toy” on a “nigger's night”. Furthermore, phrases such as “Juicy bodies”, “Of black women”, “Blue black” and “Against black fences” suggest that the relationship between the white father and the black mother is devoid of any emot… middle of paper… ...isssissippi. In “Bitter River,” Hughes believes that the Mississippi water becomes poisonous as the bodies of African Americans were thrown into the river after being lynched. Furthermore, Hughes' use of the word “blood” is intended to signify two implications. First, it may refer to kinship: to his estranged father, Hughes wrote the poem while traveling to meet him. Secondly, it may evoke the issue of race and blackness. In most of his poems, Hughes was concerned with the question of the black race which "laid the foundation for the special bond between Hughes and the Afro-Americans which led him at one time to be acclaimed as the poet laureate of the Negro race" (Andrews 310). Meanwhile, Hughes' use of the poem's irregular, unrhymed lines evokes the suffering of the African race violated by slavery and racism..