Analysis Of The Negro Speaks Of Rivers By Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes lived from early to mid-twentieth century America, a time period filled with racism and oppression of African Americans. Hughes, who is an avid poet, playwright, writer, and scholar, brilliantly speaks not only to the problems he faced, but also to his hopeful dreams of a brighter future in his works. The harsh racial discrimination he encountered, along with the experience granted to him by his diverse heritage, essentially shaped every aspect of his life. Hughes 's struggles are reflected within his very being, and are seen publically in his beliefs and literary pursuits. Specifically, in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, Hughes uses poetry to protest racism by embracing the deep roots of African American’s ancestry.
Hughes
Soul and soulfulness are both found in abundance within the blues, jazz, and religion, and have always been vital to his African American heritage. In his poem, Hughes writes, “I’ve known rivers/ I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins/ My soul has grown deep like the rivers” (Hughes). First, he creates a seemingly ancient persona, stating, “I’ve known rivers/ I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins” (1-2). These lines acknowledge how the rivers’ births predate the existence of mankind, similar to how his people 's culture predates that of many of those who have persecuted them throughout time. Furthermore, the repetition of “I” in the poem is not only representative of the persona, it also is representative of the collective African American experience (Rader). All of these experiences reside in the soul of the African American people, including Langston Hughes. Hughes connects his ancestors with the rivers and land that they inhabited; this mirrors the transcendentalist attitude towards nature and people’s connection to nature within the over-soul. He draws inspiration from famed transcendentalist Walt Whitman and his poem “Song of Myself”, using the feelings that the piece evokes in him to better represent interconnectedness and community within his own work (Rader). This interconnectedness is represented within "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Hughes 's use of a series of rivers. Like a river system, the rich history of Africans and African Americans is interconnected. In all of these rivers, Hughes’s ancestors struggled to keep their traditions alive, and in all of them, they not only survived, but thrived. “According to R. Baxter Miller, Hughes creates a kind of myth that speaks to the generative force of black persistence: 'Whether north or south, east or west, the rivers