Analyse af 'One Friday Morning' af Langston Hughes

The short story “One Friday Morning” is published in 1941 and written by the African American author Langston Hughes. Nancy Lee is a black girl who is a student in the senior art class at Washington High School. The school is about to announce this year art scholarship. Nancy Lee is proud to be an American, and she is also proud of being a negro American, sometimes she even forgets that she is black. One day she is called in to the vice principal’s office and she is told that she has won the art scholarship this year and she must prepare a speech. She can’t tell anyone about it because it must be a surprise. She manages to keep it a secret but when the day comes where she is to receive it the vice principal calls her back in her office. Now she is told that she will not receive the award. The committee sent a letter explaining that, due to Nancy Lee’s skin colour can’t they give her the award. The vice principal convinces her, that if they stick together and fight for a better future they can get it.

Nancy Lee is the main character of the story. Nancy Lee is a coloured girl (p.1,l.24) who attended to Washington High School. Nancy was a very clever girl (p.1,l.26), she was also a pretty girl and fitted in well with the life of the school (p.1,l.26). Nancy stood high on scholarships, and was very good at playing basketball (p.1,28), and she even participated in the musical at the school with her soft and smooth voice (p.1,l.28). So Nancy wasn’t bothered with her skin colour, and had a lot of options. Nancy liked her art teacher Miss Dietrich a lot. She taught her law and order in doing things (p.1,l.34). Nancy’s parents have told her about her African heritage, and what a beautiful continent it is. Her parents grew up in the south, and struggled a lot with getting a good education. Nancy develops a lot as a person in the story, in the start she is calm and ambitious, but in the end, she fights for equality between black and whites. Due to the chocking news, that she will not get an award, due to her skin colour.