Throughout this paper I will discuss ways in which the life of Langston Hughes influenced his writing style and use of symbolism in his poetry, including “Mother to Son” and “Cross.” Langston Hughes enjoys providing an abundance of “twoness” and or duality into his poems. While writing Hughes captures the art and culture of African Americans, race and segregation related issues. Also including, imagery, allusions, ambiguity, irony and a seperation of the speaker and poet. Through Langston's poems his includes symbolism to provide us with his personal thoughts and feelings about what him and his fellow African Americans have to go through just to become equal and free. Hughes did not only write poems, he also participated in several other …show more content…
Books and and poetry was his get away. "I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books—where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas,". Langston enjoyed writing and making poems. He expressed himself as a hard working man and writing significant poem that are honorable to during hours of Depression and sadness . Langston spent his time writing and pursued a career with his enjoyment while in college for the short amount of time. Hughes poetry came to the attention of novelist and critic Carl Van Vechten, who used his connections to help get Hughes’ first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, published by Knopf in 1926. The book had popular and well established both his poetic style and his commitment to black themes and heritage. Hughes was also among the first to use jazz rhythms and dialect to depict the life of urban blacks in his work. In 1934 Hughes published his first collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folks. The Ways of White Folks is collection of fourteen stories. The title is obtained from the story “Berry” based on a young black man who works as a handyman in a home for handicapped children. He also found fondness in writing plays also. Langston is also known for his proficient use of symbolism and imagery in his poems. Langston Hughes uses symbolism to convey his meaning of the poems to the readers. The symbolism in 'Mother To Son' is used to portray a life of struggle that African Americans must strive to conquer and also in ‘Cross’ Langston , he explains that his father is white and his mother is black using the context “My old man's a white old man And my old mothers black If ever I cursed my white old man, I take my curses back.”. Hughes was also a successful novelist. Hughes wrote stories about segregation to writing lullabies for children. Hughes also played
Langston Hughes- Pessimism Thesis Statement: In the poems “Weary Blues”, “Song for a Dark Girl” and “Harlem” the author Langston Hughes uses the theme of pessimism through the loss of faith, dreams and hope. First, one can look at the theme of pessimism and the correlation to the loss of faith. One can see that in “Song for a Dark Girl” an African American girl is sadden by the loss of her love. For this young and innocent girl to have to lose someone she loved so young.
Langston Hughes wrote during a very critical time in American History, the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes wrote many poems, but most of his most captivating works centered around women and power that they hold. They also targeted light and darkness and strength. The Negro Speaks of Rivers and Mother to Son, both explain the importance of the woman, light and darkness and strength in the African-American community. They both go about it in different ways.
Berry, Faith. Langston Hughes Before and Beyond Harlem Connecticut: Lawrence Hill and Company Publishers, 1983
His poems established him as a well known poet in Harlem. In two of his poems one titled “Mother to Son” and the other “Harlem” both have some comparison and contrast between the two. The poem “Mother to Son” is more of a free lyric flowing poem. In this poem Langston Hughes gets the message across in a powerful attack. The poem is narrated from a mother’s viewpoint and the wisdom she gives her son as read in the following lines:
“Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.” –Edgar Allan Poe. Poetry is one of the world’s greatest wonders. It is a way to tell a story, raise awareness of a social or political issue, an expression of emotions, an outlet, and last but not least it is an art. Famous poet Langston Hughes uses his poetry as a musical art form to raise awareness of social injustices towards African-Americans during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Although many poets share similarities with one another, Hughes creatively crafted his poetry in a way that was only unique to him during the 1920’s. He implemented different techniques and styles in his poetry that not only helped him excel during the 1920’s, but has also kept him relative in modern times. Famous poems of his such as a “Dream Deferred,” and “I, Too, Sing America” are still being studied and discussed today. Due to the cultural and historical events occurring during the 1920’s Langston Hughes was able to implement unique writing characteristics such as such as irregular use of form, cultural and historical referenced themes and musical influences such as Jazz and the blues that is demonstrative of his writing style. Langston Hughes use of distinct characteristics such as irregular use of form, cultural and historical referenced themes and musical influences such as Jazz and the blues helped highlight the plights of African-Americans during the Harlem Renaissance Era.
When reading the literature of Langston Hughes, I cant help but feel energetically charged and inspired. Equality, freedom, empowerment, renaissance, justice and perseverance, are just a few of the subject matter Hughes offers. He amplifies his voice and beliefs through his works, which are firmly rooted in race pride and race feeling. Hughes committed himself both to writing and to writing mainly about African Americans. His early love for the “wonderful world of books” was sparked by loneliness and parental neglect.
Like most, the stories we hear as children leave lasting impacts in our heads and stay with us for lifetimes. Hughes was greatly influenced by the stories told by his grandmother as they instilled a sense of racial pride that would become a recurring theme in his works as well as become a staple in the Harlem Renaissance movement. During Hughes’ prominence in the 20’s, America was as prejudiced as ever and the African-American sense of pride and identity throughout the U.S. was at an all time low. Hughes took note of this and made it a common theme to put “the everyday black man” in most of his stories as well as using traditional “negro dialect” to better represent his African-American brethren. Also, at this time Hughes had major disagreements with members of the black middle class, such as W.E.B. DuBois for trying to assimilate and promote more european values and culture, whereas Hughes believed in holding fast to the traditions of the African-American people and avoid having their heritage be whitewashed by black intellectuals.
Langston Hughes was probably the most well-known literary force during the Harlem Renaissance. He was one of the first known black artists to stress a need for his contemporaries to embrace the black jazz culture of the 1920s, as well as the cultural roots in Africa and not-so-distant memory of enslavement in the United States. In formal aspects, Hughes was innovative in that other writers of the Harlem Renaissance stuck with existing literary conventions, while Hughes wrote several poems and stories inspired by the improvised, oral traditions of black culture (Baym, 2221). Proud of his cultural identity, but saddened and angry about racial injustice, the content of much of Hughes’ work is filled with conflict between simply doing as one is told as a black member of society and standing up for injustice and being proud of one’s identity. This relates to a common theme in many of Hughes’ poems: that dignity is something that has to be fought for by those who are held back by segregation, poverty, and racial bigotry.
Langston Hughes was deemed the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race," a fitting title which the man who fueled the Harlem Renaissance deserved. But what if looking at Hughes within the narrow confines of the perspective that he was a "black poet" does not fully give him credit or fully explain his works? What if one actually stereotypes Hughes and his works by these over-general definitions that cause readers to look at his poetry expecting to see "blackness?" Any person's unique experiences in life and the sense of personal identity this forms most definitely affects the way he or she views the world. This molded view of the world can, in turn, be communicated by the person through artistic expression. Taking this logic into account, to more fully comprehend the message and force of Hughes' poetry one must look, not just to his work, but also at the experiences in his life that constructed his ideas about society and his own identity. In looking at Hughes' biography, one studies his struggle to form a self-identity that reflected both his African American and mainstream white cultural influence; consequently, this mixing of black and white identity that occurred throughout Hughes' life is reflected in his poem "The Weary Blues."
Both Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes were great writers but their attitudes towards their personal experience as an African American differed in many ways. These differences can be attributed to various reasons that range from gender to life experience but even though they had different perceptions regarding the African American experience, they both shared one common goal, racial equality through art. To accurately delve into the minds of the writers’ one must first consider authors background such as their childhood experience, education, as well their early adulthood to truly understand how it affected their writing in terms the similarities and differences of the voice and themes used with the works “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Hurston and Hughes’ “The Negro Mother”. The importance of these factors directly correlate to how each author came to find their literary inspiration and voice that attributed to their works.
On the road of life, many obstacles come about that one must overcome to make themself feel complete. The poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes was written in 1922. Langston Hughes was a black writer, whose work started to be published in the 1920s. “Mother to Son,” which shows a black mother telling her son to stay hopeful despite all the hardships one may encounter in life. Here the author is passing a message to the public through this woman of wisdom.The mother tells her son that life has not always been easy for her, yet she is still carrying on. This poem “Mother to Son” has many poetry elements within the poem. The poem shows the message of staying hopeful through the obstacles one may encounter throughout life. Hughes uses metaphors,
The comparison between two poems are best analyzed through the form and meaning of the pieces. “Mother to Son” and “Harlem (A Dream Deferred)” both written by the profound poet Langston Hughes, depicts many similarities and differences between the poems. Between these two poems the reader can identify his flow of writing through analyzing the form and meaning of each line.
Through the exemplary use of symbolism, Langston Hughes produced two poems that spoke to a singular idea: Black people have prevailed through trials and tribulations to carry on their legacy as a persevering people. From rivers to stairs, Hughes use of extended metaphor emphasizes the feeling of motion which epitomizes the determination of the people. Overall, the driving feeling of the poems coupled with their strong imagery produce two different works that solidify and validate one main idea.
.Langston Hughes wrote the poem “Negro” in 1922. After emancipation, African Americans tried to locate a protected place to embrace music, liberal arts, and theater.African Americans found this in Harlem and used their artistic skills to press for racial equality. This poem is meant to illustrate the presence of blacks throughout history, highlight their global contributions, and illuminate their sufferings.
Symbolism embodies Hughes’ literary poem through his use of the river as a timeless symbol. A river can be portrayed by many as an everlasting symbol of perpetual and continual change and of the constancy of time and of life itself. People have equated rivers to the aspects of life - time, love, death, and every other indescribable quality which evokes human life. This analogy is because a river exemplifies characteristics that can be ultimately damaging or explicitly peaceable. In the poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Langston Hughes cites all of these qualities.