The Reconciliation of Opposites
We should not forget that Not Without Laughter is, above all things, a bildungsroman (Schultz, p.44), and Hughes presents its protagonist, Sandy, growing up and developing, and slowly beginning to make sense of American society, of himself and of what he wants to do in life. As Sandy matures he is faced with various choices about how to live his life, and he becomes acutely aware of certain oppositions in the novel. Furthermore, Hughes himself presents further oppositions almost all of which stem from the racist society in which Sandy lives or, if they occur within the African American community ...
