Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen: The Harlem Renaissance, African-American Identity and Isolation

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The Harlem Renaissance became a defining moment for the African –American race because of the burst of skill and creativity produced during that time. African Americans were becoming writers, actors, and artist; the Harlem Renaissance was a creative movement. The Harlem Renaissance began and flourished as a literary movement. The background, political, and social views of the major writers of the Harlem Renaissance remained different throughout the movement, but they all gave voice to the African-American existence. Langston Hughes, a writer during the Harlem Renaissance, depicted African-American life through his writing. This differed from other writers such as Countee Cullen. Hughes intertwined his personal experience and the experiences of black America in his writing; depicting Black culture, Black suffering, and Black happiness. Countee Cullen wrote to interweave black and white poetry, creating one race of poetry: American poetry. Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen wrote in the Harlem Renaissance attempting to depict Black identity and isolation.
The main question of the Harlem Renaissance centered on what it meant to be African-American. Segregation separated black people from white people and treated blacks as if they were second-class citizens rather than equal to their white neighbors. This treatment was especially unbearable because, “African-Americans had to wait until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1867, two hundred years after first arriving in North America, to be come citizens, and wait another hundred years before they could exercise the rights of citizens everywhere in the nation (Hutchison 13).” Young black writers, such as Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes, reflected the energy of the New Negro ...

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...rot and become bitter inside. Hughes questions again, “Does it stink like rotten meat?/Or crust and sugar over/like a syrupy sweet?” The dream may rot and stink because it has been locked up inside or it may preserve itself by “crusting and sugaring over”. The African-American dream remain a sweet tasting idea or “Maybe it just sags/like a heavy load”. The dream can remain a heavy load sagging on the backs of African-Americans seeking to gain the equality that they deserved. Hughes asks the final question, “Or does it explode”. Does the American dream for African Americans dry up, rot, sugar over, or “sag like a heavy load/Or does it explode?” Hughes makes a bold statement about African-American isolation. They are separated from whites achieving the American dream; they can only dream of the same equality and as Langston Hughes wrote their dream had been deferred.

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