“Aunt Sue's Stories” Summary

“Aunt Sue's Stories” Themes

• 

  Storytelling and Family Memory

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• 

  Black History and the Legacy of Slavery

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Aunt Sue's Stories”

• Lines 1-5

  Aunt Sue has a head full of stories.
  Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories.
  Summer nights on the front porch
  Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom
  And tells him stories.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 6-11

  Black slaves
  Working in the hot sun,
  And black slaves
  Walking in the dewy night,
  And black slaves
  Singing sorrow songs on the banks of a mighty river

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 12-16

  Mingle themselves softly
  In the flow of old Aunt Sue's voice,
  Mingle themselves softly
  In the dark shadows that cross and recross
  Aunt Sue's stories.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 17-22

  And the dark-faced child, listening,
  Knows that Aunt Sue's stories are real stories.
  He knows that Aunt Sue never got her stories
  Out of any book at all,
  But that they came
  Right out of her own life.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 23-25

  The dark-faced child is quiet
  Of a summer night
  Listening to Aunt Sue's stories.

  

  

  

  

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“Aunt Sue's Stories” Symbols

• 

  The River

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“Aunt Sue's Stories” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Sibilance

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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“Aunt Sue's Stories” Vocabulary

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• Bosom
• Dewy
• Mingle

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Aunt Sue's Stories”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Aunt Sue's Stories” Speaker

“Aunt Sue's Stories” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Aunt Sue's Stories”

More “Aunt Sue's Stories” Resources

• External Resources

  • Read About Hughes' First Poetry Collection — An overview of The Weary Blues, the collection in which "Aunt Sue's Stories" was originally published, via the Academy of American Poets.

  • More About the Poet — A Poetry Foundation biography of Langston Hughes.

  • An Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance — Read about the literary movement of which Hughes was a part.

  • An Introduction to Jazz Poetry — Read about a specific kind of poetry Hughes helped establish. 

  • The Public vs. Private Hughes — Read an article by writer and critic Hilton Als about Hughes's careful public persona and the complex, real person behind the poems.

  • Listen to the Poet Read — A recording of Hughes reading several of his poems, including "Aunt Sue's Stories."

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Langston Hughes

  • As I Grew Older

  • Cross

  • Daybreak in Alabama

  • Democracy

  • Dreams

  • Dream Variations

  • Harlem

  • Homecoming

  • I Look at the World

  • I, Too

  • Let America Be America Again

  • Mother to Son

  • Night Funeral in Harlem

  • The Ballad of the Landlord

  • Theme for English B

  • The Negro Speaks of Rivers

  • The Weary Blues