To use a clichéd Shakespearean phrase, “All the world’s a stage, and the men and women merely players.” Every day is a performance. People put on their proverbial masks to fill their different roles throughout the day: mother, son, husband, teacher, student, businessman, etc. This concept of performance has been addressed in theatre throughout the years. One play that addresses this concept of performance is Langston Hughes’ Soul Gone Home. The concept of performance is found within Hughes’ Soul Gone Home through the mother’s staged grieving, the son’s reversal of expectations by coming to life, and the application of W.E.B. DuBois’ idea of the double-consciousness.
     It is natural for a mother to grieve at the loss of a child. In fact, it is expected. The play opens with the son lying dead on a cot, and his mother kneeling beside him displaying an exaggerated grief. The mother cries,
     “Oh, Gawd! Oh, Lawd! Why did you take my son from me? Oh, Gawd, why did you do it? He was all I had! Oh, Lawd,

     what am I gonna do? Oh, son! Oh, Ronnie!” (535)
She continues in this fashion for a few lines, and beckons him to speak. Within the play, there is no one in the room to witness her grief but her dead son. Because it is socially expected for a mother to grieve at the loss of a child, the mother does so. She puts on a performance of grief to meet with the audience’s and society’s expectation of her. The mother’s performance is again seen at the end of the play when the ambulance men come to take her son’s body away. After just having been quarreling with her dead son, as soon as the men enter the room she starts to cry again,
     “He’s my boy! Oh, Lawd, he done left me! Oh, Lawdy, he’s done gone home! His soul’s gone home! Oh, what am I

     gonna do? Mister! Mister! Mister, the Lawd’s done took him home!” (537)
She puts on this performance for the ambulance men, and as soon as they are making their way down the stairs she stops, which is proof of her lack of sincerity. The mother then assumes another role, the role of her livelihood—a prostitute. She powders and rouges her face to get ready for a whole evening of performing, providing further evidence of her insincerity.
     The son has been placed in the role of “deceased.” By his sudden springing to life he reverses the audience’s expectation of his role and thus functions as a reminder of the theatricality of what is taking place. In a witty response to his mother’s grief and then shock at his speaking, Ronnie says,
     “You done called on me to talk, ain’t you?” (535).
By speaking this line, the son is addressing his mother’s absurd performance that has just taken place. He knows with her cries of
     “Oh, my boy, speak to me! Ronnie, say something to me! Son, why don’t you talk to your mother?” (535)
that she lacked sincerity. Although it is easy in many instances to get absorbed and lost in a theatrical performance, Ronnie’s coming to life reminds the audience that they are, in fact, watching a performance, and nothing more. At the end of the play, Ronnie’s mother is aware that the ambulance are soon to arrive and insists that Ronnie get back in his original position—to assume the role of the dead boy once again.
     According to W.E.B. DuBois, a prominent African-American writer and theorist who was around at the same time as Hughes, African-Americans possess what is referred to as a “double-consciousness.” That is, a consciousness of self, and a consciousness of what is expected of the self, according to racial stereotypes. The mother displays this double-consciousness in Soul Gone Home. She is conscious of herself and her role as mother, and is therefore aware that at the death of her son she should be grieving. Her other conscious makes her aware that she is an African-American mother who is grieving, and thus the crying and wailing of “Oh, Lawdy,” an expected phrase by Caucasians of an African-American expressing woe, particularly in front of the white ambulance men. Thus, the mother possesses double-consciousness, and this perpetuates the notion of performance.
     Performing is something an individual does on a daily basis. Can anyone ever be their “real” self? Soul Gone Home provides evidence for a negative answer to this question. The mother performs exaggerated and false grief, partially due to the possession of a double-consciousness. The son even performs false death in that he rises and speaks when he should be lying still and cold. Even when the mother is completely alone, she is preparing for yet another performance. Soul Gone Home conveys the message that people are constantly performing, that many of these performances are ridiculous, and sincerity is rare.