How does Langston Hughes use imagery in Tambourines to Glory?

Chapter 17, Lights Out, symbolically refers to Buddy's actions at the end of the chapter as he and Laura prepare to make love, Lights Out also refers to Laura's descent into a moral and spiritual darkness that gets deeper and more difficult to oppose, as she becomes increasingly involved in the corrupt schemes planned by Buddy and Marty. The irony here is that, in descending into moral darkness, Laura is descending into whiteness, or the control of white people like Marty.

It is important to note that in the chapter, moral darkness is also equated with white control over black lives and black souls. This idea is echoed in the repeated use of contrasting white and black imagery - the blackness of Buddy's body contrasted with the whiteness of the sheets, an image developed further when it's remembered that sheets are an enveloping, or wrapping up kind of thing. In this image it's clear that Buddy and Laura, in their blackness, are being swallowed up by whiteness. Their blackness is also contrasted with the whiteness of cigarettes, which in contemporary terms has resonance with cancer and death. The image evokes the idea of black people being destroyed by the cancer of white control.