Berry
Langston Hughes
Summary
Berry is about a young black man called Millberry Jones who is employed at Dr.
Renfield’s Home for Crippled Children. He was reluctantly employed by Mrs.
Osborn, the housekeeper, because the Scandinavian kitchen boy had left without
notice, leaving her no choice in hiring Berry. Her reluctance to hire Berry
stemmed from his race, which initiated questions such as where he would sleep,
as well as how the other employees would react to the presence of a Negro. She
had a meeting with Dr. Renfield and they decided to hire Millberry on a reduced
salary. He was overworked and underpaid, but took solace in the children whom
he loved. An unfortunate incident occurred, however, where a child fell from his
wheelchair while in the care of Berry. The result was that Berry was fired and
given no salary for the week that he had worked.
Characters
Millbury Jones (Berry)
A Black male, approximately 20 years old.
Described as good natured and strong.
Poor and uneducated.
Very observant and intuitive about people and places.
Very good with children due to his gentleness.
Mrs. Osborn
The housekeeper at the children’s home.
Rumoured to be in love with Dr. Renfield.
Very high handed with her staff, but docile with Dr. Renfield.
Displays racist characteristics in subtle forms.
Dr. Renfield
Rumoured to have romantic affairs with his female staff.
Berry observes that the Home is ‘Doc Renfield’s own private gyp game’
(Hughes, p. 162), meaning that he runs his establishment for his own
profit, instead of a desire to take genuine care of the children. He is
blatantly racist.
Themes
Racism
This theme is apparent when Berry was being considered for employment at the
Home. Mrs. Osborn was concerned about where Berry would sleep, implying that
he could not sleep with the white servants because he was considered to be
beneath them. His salary was also cut due to his race, and he was overworked,
with no discussions of days off, ‘everybody was imposing on him in that taken-for-
granted way white folks do with Negro help.’ (Hughes, 162). Even more
importantly, when the unfortunate accident occurred with the child, there was no
attempt at discerning what led to the incident, but blame was laid on the obvious
person – Berry. As a result, he was relieved of his job in a hail of racist slurs. The
students will be placed in their peer groups to analyze various aspects of the
story.
Oppression
The theme of oppression is expressed repetitively throughout this story.
White workers and superiors kept expecting Milberry to do more and more.
Milberry’s response to these requests was a quiet acceptance without
bitterness because he was happy and thankful enough to have this job and
food. In the story Milberry found happiness in helping the crippled children
at play during his brief rest period. At first the nurses were hesitant whether
they should allow it or not. At the end of the story the nurses had changed
their mind frame about Berry and would come looking for and demanding
his immediate help.
In his typical nature in responding to and accepting their demand he unknowingly
caused his own demise. While Berry was helping a boy in a wheelchair down the
stairs, due to know fault of Berry’s own doing, the boy fell out of the chair onto the
grass and the wheelchair onto the walk. In the fall the boy was not hurt but the
wheelchairs back was snapped off. In this scene Langston Hughes uses the
wheelchair as a symbol of Milberry’s undoing. The wheelchair’s falling represents
Berry’s falling from the grace of the white people’s acceptance. The snapped
back of the wheelchair foreshadows Berry’s immediate termination of
employment. Even though it was the white nurses responsibility and job they
quickly and gladly placed all the blame for the accident upon Berry. This truly
exemplifies the use of oppression of white people over blacks.
