Cora Unashamed

The concept of humility becomes a motif in the story through narrative repetition. Like shame’s thematic role in the story, an expectation of humility is used to preserve the existing power dynamic between Black and white communities. In the narrator’s repeated comments about Cora’s humility or lack thereof, the same sentence structure is echoed, emphasizing its thematic relevance.

In the first of four occurrences, Cora has just given birth to Josephine. The narrator states, “Cora was humble and shameless before the fact of the child” (7). The second occurrence comes at Josephine’s funeral, when the narrator says, “Cora was not humble before the fact of death” (8). In the third repetition, the reader is told, “The next week she went back to the Studevants. She was gentle and humble in the face of life—she loved their baby” (8-9). Finally, at Jessie’s funeral, Hughes writes, “[I]t was what she did, and how she did it, that has remained the talk of Melton to this day—for Cora was not humble in the face of death” (16). 

Each time, Cora defies expectations for her behavior. Owing to institutional discrimination, many Black citizens feel they must be twice as good to avoid further victimization and oppression. Those who benefit from this power differential rely on expectations that Black people remain humble through their adversities. In this sense, humble actually means docile and controllable. Even in the event of her child’s death, Cora is expected to remain meek and accept misfortune as her lot in life. Instead, she curses God and screams so violently that onlookers are startled and horrified. Later, Jessie’s tragic death triggers Cora’s ultimate rejection of white society’s expectation that she remains humble.