Most disturbing characters...

This question was posed to my Harlem Renaissance class: Which of the character/s in Langston Hughes' novella The Ways of White Folks' story titled Father and Son was the most disturbing to you? This is not an easy question for me to answer. Set on the Big House Plantation in Georgia during Reconstruction, all the characters provoke the mind into considering why the familial "structure" was a social norm in the nation's past and how it affects the present day? Colonel Thomas Norwood with his Negro mistress Coralee Lewis, and his mulatto children, Willie; Bert; and Bertha Lewis (Norwood), that he would deny as his own before white people, as if many of them did not have similar situations in their own household, are all familiar characters to those that have studied Black Bondage in American history. However, I was not prepared for the actual discomfort I felt in reading the short, offensive interaction Cora has with Talbot and Jim, two well-known white men of the town, following the murder of Norwood at the hands of his openly defiant son Bert. As Cora enters a state of shock upon finding a dead Norwood the men harshly address her for answers, "talk, you black wench", "where's that yellow bastard of yours, Cora" and "that young n*****'ll swing before midnight...what a neck-tie party!" Naturally, Cora is grief-stricken because her son has killed her lover, his father. The story demonstrates that she and Norwood cared for, loved one another and made a home together for twenty plus years. Due to Cora's race the male visitors have no sympathy or couth in handling the situation. That is the part of the story that caused my body temperature to rise as anger arose within. In my opinion, these characters convey the jealousy and envy of Norwood's possessions. They continue to insult Cora while speaking to one another, "murderin' bastard's mother" and "bad business, though livin' with a n*****."  The ending continues to unfold with racial slurs and heavily expressed disgust regarding the mixing of races, following the Civil War. I say all this to say, Talbot and Jim are the most disturbing characters in the story. Bert is the most respectable character who I labeled as a tragic hero. He refused to cooperate with societal expectations, which would deny that he was Norwood's, educated son. The emotions the story pulled from me as a reader were unexpected, therefore I would recommend reading Hughes' The Ways of White Folks as a thought provoking literary text.  He used autobiographical and biographical details to design various characters, milieus, and conflicts for an ageless novel. The book is a must read. 

Things to consider when I am teaching...