[The] image of home unifies Not Without Laughter. Hughes works within a long tradition, ranging from Homer to Baraka (Jones) in verse…. [The literature of this tradition attempts] to define home and man's relationship to it. This effort indicates a movement from innocence to experience. It implies alienation, happiness or despair. (p. 362)

Not Without Laughter emphasized home and the three levels on which this image has meaning: the mythical, the historical, and the social….

From an initial situation of home, the reader moves first to a disintegration of the Williams family and then to a process of the family's re-creation. (p. 363)

The structure of Not Without Laughter reveals a continual process of venture and return. The first chapter strikes a biblical tone. To this, the implied author will return at the end, but then Sandy will understand more about life. Simple narrative merges with mythic symbol. (p. 364)

In Not Without Laughter, home does more than reveal biblical myth: indeed, it implies racial history. To the ideal reader, wandering connotes four hundred years of enslavement. (p. 365)

The functions of home unify Not Without Laughter. The implied author can shift easily from a mythic level to a historical plain—to a social setting of character, or to any combination of the three. He can portray first the Williams family, then its disintegration, and finally its re-creation. (p. 369)