The poem that I am analyzing is “Let America be America Again” by Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes was a writer backed with power and passion with what he wrote. He was born in a time period where racism and prejudice was still in full affect. The literature he wrote, he wrote to inspire people to make the right decisions based not on the way people looked, but their character and how they treated you. Hughes grew up in the time of the Harlem Renaissance. “He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred” (Poets.org)
The poem “Let America be America Again” was one of his better
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Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.)” This is the very first stanza and I think it is a heck of a way to start out the poem, he is saying let America go back to the “dream” or thought of what everyone coming over on the Mayflower thought and prayed it would be. They didn’t think it would become a place where everyone is treated unequally and people get some of their rights taken away they thought it would be a place for worship and a good place where they can raise their kids. He also said “ Let it be the pioneer on the plain”, What this means to me is that he wants it to go back to where everyone wasn’t relying on someone else to provide the necessary things we need to survive, but we grew our own vegetables and fruits and caught our animals in order to survive and thrive. The last line in the stanza says “Seeking a home where he himself is free. America was never America to me.” What I think he means in this sentence is that he never got the freedoms he thought he would have when he was taught why America was built. He went through racism, lack and not enough along with everyone else in America at the time, and he states that the idea of America, he had never …show more content…
Although we are not kicking Natives out of their homes and forcing people to do manual labor we are still getting away from the standards and morals that our founding fathers and our country was based upon. America is starting to get away from the “Land of the free and home of the brave” it’s becoming very socialistic and we cannot have that because if the people that spilled their blood for us and lost family members were to look back on America today, they would be so disappointed at how we have changed it and how it is getting farther and farther from what they built it
The government in the United States supposedly revolves around American ideals such as equality and diversity; however, this is simply not the case. The meaning of democracy has been skewed in the United States to represent something entirely different than it did in 1776 when the country was founded. Today, our democracy behaves more like an aristocracy, where the upper class exercises power within the government and state, influencing discourse and therefore the laws and resources in our country, purportedly “for the people”. Democracy is presumed to provide everyone with equal political power, but the government in today’s America, although seemingly following this ideal model, does not. Instead, the elite upper-class have a monopoly over
Langston Hughes expresses his poems with the connection of jazz blues music and African Americans expressing themselves by dancing and following the beat to the music rhythm describing flashbacks of the past and comparing them to present day using imagery, figurative language describing and punctuation, which makes the reader think about African Americans in the past and how they are treated different today.
In the first poem "Let America be America" by Langston Hughes the speaker is talking about how America is not what it seems from what everyone thought it was. In the lines it states,
This poem is often compared to Walt Whitman’s I Hear America Singing because of the similarities of the two poems. In this poem, Hughes argues that the African American race is equal to whites. Hughes even declares that one day the African American race will be equal to whites. Hughes proclaims, “Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed-I, too, am America.” Hughes was very bold and daring when he wrote these lines in this poem. He is implying that the white people will regret what they have done to blacks. That they will be ashamed of how they treated them. Undoubtedly, this poem expresses Hughes cultural identity.
My topic is God Bless America of Faith Ringgold. She is an African-American artist. She is not only a painter but also a writer, speaker and mixed media sculptor. Faith Ringgold was born on October 8th 1930 in Harlem, New York City and she is still alive. God Bless America is one of the most famous arts of Faith Ringgold that was produce in 1964. In that art, she used the oil on canvas and the dimension is 31x19 in. The subject of Faith Ringgold’s God Bless America is the woman on the background of American flag. There is another reason that make God Bless America became popular at that time. At that time, there was a Civil Right movement because the white prejudice against African American was enforced by the legal system. Therefore the theme
Idealism in Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes In the poem "Let America Be America Again," Langston Hughes paints a vivid picture of a depressed America in the 1930's. To many living in America, the idealism presented as the American Dream had escaped their grasp. In this poetic expression, a speaker is allowed to voice the unsung Americans' concern of how America was intended to be, had become to them, and could aspire to be again. Using a conversational style, the author allows the speaker and listener to interact with each other.
Because of that, his writing seems to manifest a greater meaning. He is part of the African-American race that is expressed in his writing. He writes about how he is currently oppressed, but this does not diminish his hope and will to become the equal man. Because he speaks from the point of view of an oppressed African-American, the poem’s struggles and future changes seem to be of greater importance than they ordinarily would. The point of view of being the oppressed African American is clearly evident in Langston Hughes’s writing.
Langston Hughes’ “Theme for English B” is a rhetorical poem in which Hughes asks the question about his social and racial status in society. Growing up through the First World War and took part in the Civil Rights Era, Hughes experienced racial tensions while going to school at Columbia University in a time when higher education was still for the affluent and dominantly white. His poem is a reflection of his reaction from a teachers’ writing prompt which influenced him to write on his racial and social tensions which is enhanced by his structure, rhetorical questions, and his use of first person. The speaker in this poem is Hughes himself, who is responding to a teacher’s prompt in which it says to express himself freely.
“I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me”. These are the words of Langston Hughes, a black writer and poet from the early twentieth century. This man was famous for his portrayal of the realities of black life and culture in America. Although some literary critics may feel that Hughes’s poetry presented an unattractive view of black life, his poetry demonstrated the reality of their lives. Many of Hughes’s poems stand out in their description of the black experience. Some of the poems that stand out include “Ku Klux,” “House In the World,” and “Children’s Rhymes.” These poems delve into the world of fear, segregation, and the lost innocence of black culture. These poems genuinely demonstrate the difficult lives most black people had to live.
Poems are expression of the human soul, and even though, is not everyone’s cup of tea when the individual finds that special poem it moves their soul one with the poet. There are many poets in the world, but the one that grab my attention the most was no other than Langston Hughes. It would be impossible for me to cover all the poems he wrote, but the one that grab my attention the most is called “Let America Be America Again.” It first appeared in “1938 pamphlet by Hughes entitled A New Song. Which was published by a socialist organization named the International Worker Order” (MLM) and later change back to its original name. I have never felt such an energy coming out of a poem like this one which is the reason that I instantly felt in love with it.
The poem opens a thought of the American Dream, about what he wants America to be, and his hope for the country. The beginning line of the poem entails that America has to be the same America it once was, to me it’s a lie. America back then practiced slavery and oppression, it destroyed the lands of people to build their own homes. The ideal of an “America” was all a dream. It’s what they wanted for their America to be. We as people should be able to rise up and redefine the American equality and take back our land. The poem serves a powerful message of equality. The theme of this poem is against injustice and inequalities that exist in America and that can corrupt the American dream. All characters in the novels we read for the semester i.e. The African, Quick skills, and Tucker, have a lot of similarities with the poem, “Let America Be America Again”. They led their people to freedom by fighting against slavery and restrictions. The African escaped from his master. The African vowed to be free and never be enslaved again. Quickskill came to liberate the fellow slaves, who were enslaved in his master 's plantation. Tucker realized that he had some worth, and wanted freedom for his family. All three of these characters laid their lives on the line for their fellow men. They would rather prefer to die with dignity rather than become a white man’s property. They wanted
... They focus more on the cultural aspects of identity that Hughes is very proud of, while poems “Democracy” and “Theme for English B” touch on some of the social concerns that created a struggle for dignity as a black person in the early/mid twentieth century. The “Democracy” is a slightly stern and direct request to take action and fight for civil rights. The “Theme for English B” is a compassionate and low-key personal anecdote that reiterates the unpracticed concept that “all men are created equal”. Despite the difference in tone and subject, all four poems relate to the central theme that dignity is something that white men may take for granted, but Langston Hughes, as a black man and a writer, sees and feels dignity as a fight and a struggle that he faces and that the black community as a whole faces every day.
The narrator also discusses about a girl about the same age as her would have never been the “right kind of American.” Minorities such as the African Americans, Dominican Americans and any other ethnicity that came to America were looked right under the microscope. This perplexed me I do not understand why they are treated unfairly by the “True Americans.” There is no such thing as True Americans and that this poem definitely targeted it's audience through racial discrimination rather than cultural changes within a neighborhood in Queens, NY. Another Poet had a much refined and unique style of another part of New York City, he is one of my favorite poets Langston Hughes.
Whitman’s poem was written in the mid-1800s during the industrial revolution, but Hughes’ poem was written in the 1900s during the Civil Rights Movement. This is important because the Civil Rights Movement established the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Industrial Revolution moved at a slow place but there were still issues with slavery. Whitman’s poem was free verse while Hughes’ poem was traditional rhyme/rhythm. The tone of Whitman’s poem was patriotic and celebratory (I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear); because he was paying tribute to the success of the individuals; however, the tone of Hughes’ poem was sarcastic and frustrated (to build a “homeland of the free,’’ because he didn’t feel like some individuals were allowed to experience the American Dream. Whitman’s theme of his poem was that individuals and liberties make America great. On the other hand, Hughes’ theme of his poem expressed that individuals felt excluded from the “homeland of the free.” The purpose of Whitman’s poem is praise for universal brotherhood. However, Hughes’ poem’s purpose was to inform individuals about inequality, meaning that not everyone has the same liberties in America. Whitman’s poem focused on the jobs of the workers, while Hughes’ poem focused on race, social status, and a list to represent the “I am’’ phrase; (I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars). He also
The civil rights movement may have technically ended in the nineteen sixties, but America is still feeling the adverse effects of this dark time in history today. African Americans were the group of people most affected by the Civil Rights Act and continue to be today. Great pain and suffering, though, usually amounts to great literature. This period in American history was no exception. Langston Hughes was a prolific writer before, during, and after the Civil Rights Act and produced many classic poems for African American literature. Hughes uses theme, point of view, and historical context in his poems “I, Too” and “Theme for English B” to expand the views on African American culture to his audience members.