Stephon Sailor Anderson English 1102 9 April 2017 Literary Essay II “Speaker” “Just as fiction depends on a narrator, poetry depends on a speaker” (500). In poetry, the speaker and the poet are not the same, poems by the same author can have different voices. A speaker is usually able to convey feeling, events, and possibly an idea or two, to the readers. The more information the reader knows about the speaker can help the readers to interpret the poem. This essay will identify the speaker and discuss the poem for each: “Negro,” “Theme for English B,” and “Harlem.” “Negro” by Langston Hughes, is a poem that tells the history of the African American people. The speaker is an African American male who expresses the actions and the treatment …show more content…
In the poem, the first stanza explains to the reader what assignment the college student was instructed to do. The second stanza conveys the demographics of the speaker. He is 22, born in North Carolina and he is African American and lives at the Harlem YMCA. In the third stanza, the speaker is considering, that maybe it is not easy at 22 to know who you are and what you want out of life. The speaker is still learning and growing. The speaker thinks about the things he likes and enjoys. He reminds the reader that he is not so different from other races. He thinks about what he might write the assignment that he was instructed to do, and how it might look and he decides that it will be part white because he is being influenced by the instructor. The line that says, “That’s American” (770), is the heart of the poem. Referring to how America is full of diversity and we can all learn from each other and that it is important to see the common ground despite race, and age …show more content…
The poem gives a message that no one should procrastinate and expect dreams to happen on their own. Hughes delivers this message by having a series of similes throughout the poem so that the reader would comprehend the point that is being made. “A simile states similarity that illustrates how one object is like another.” It is a figure of speech, “an expression that departs from regular, straightforward use of language to achieve a particular effect.” Hughes tries to give the reader a mental image by comparing a dream to several things that get worse over time. An example of this is when Langston compares a dream deferred to a sagging, heavy load, an unwanted burden. The speaker in this poem is the
An African American, who is singing and playing a blues number who is being observed, and described by the central narrative voice. Hughes uses similes in these two lines. Line 13 says “ The musician can play the piano like a fool”. Hughes describes the musicians playing like fool. “Fool” is a good thing in this context. Line 35 says “ He slept like a rock or a man that 's dead”. This simile means that he was sleeping so deeply he isn 't moving or that he is resting like a dead man. Another literary term Hughes uses in his poem is personification. He uses personification in lines 10 and 18. Line 10 says, “ He made that poor piano moan with melody”. The musician in the poem is making the piano moan, but pianos don 't moan. However, the sound of the piano makes the speaker feel like the piano is moaning. Line 18 says “ I heard that negro sing, that old piano moan-”. Once again Hughes is making the speaker feel like the piano is moaning, but he is just describing the melody of the piano and the musician’s voice ("The Weary Blues
A good example would be when the mother in the story talks about her life using a metaphor of a staircase. In the beginning of the poem, the mother says, "Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, [...] But all the time, I’se been a-climbin’ on" (Hughes lines 1-9). This metaphor describes the mother's life experience, the reader can infer was hard, but the nice part of this excerpt is the final lines, where the metaphor of continuing to climb on the staircase is used to symbolize the mother's goal to persevere, no matter how tough life gets because she believes her efforts will accomplish something good.
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.
Langston Hughes was one of the most influential poets during the Harlem Renaissance. With the use of blues and Jazz Hughes managed to convey a range of different themes all revolving around the Negro. “[Langston Hughes] The first poet to transform the idioms of blues and jazz into poetic verse” (Johnson and Farrell 55). This use of blues in written work was called the blues aesthetics. Hughes’s “Bound No’th Blues” is a perfect example of the Blues Aesthetics. “The blues reflects the trials and tribulations of the Negro in America on a secular level” (Waldron 140). “Bound No’th Blues” reflects the journey of a southern African American who m...
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
The poem “Negro” was written by Langston Hughes in 1958, where it was a time of African American development and the birth of the Civil Rights Movement. Langston Hughes, as a first person narrator, tells a story of what he has been through as a Negro, and the life he is proud to have had. He expresses his emotional experiences and makes the reader think about what exactly it was like to live his life during this time. By using specific words, this allows the reader to envision the different situations he has been put through. Starting off the poem with the statement “I am a Negro:” lets people know who he is, Hughes continues by saying, “Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa.”
describing is simply a dream in what you want to achieve in life. And in the poem the dreams of the
of the speaker through out the poem. One Art is a poem about inevitable loss and the incognizant
Langston Hughes was an outstanding African American poet and playwright in the 20th century. In fact, Hughes’ focus on literary works that illustrated the lives and struggles of African Americans made him a key contributor to the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was "an intellectual, social, and artistic eruption of African American culture and art" that took place in Harlem in the 1920s. The poem being analyzed is one of Langston Hughes's most prominent, and relatable poems. “Theme for English B”, is written in free verse with simple diction and depicts the racial issues and divide that existed at the time of its creation.
Thus, the poet’s use of foregrounding, as seen in line 8, demonstrates the thematic message of the poem that every ethnicity must be treated equally by stressing on a future when the speaker will not shunned because of his skin color. Later in the poem, the speaker believes that nobody will dare tell him to eat in the kitchen, and people will appreciate him for who he is. In the last stanza, he says, “I, too, am America” (l. 18). The speaker states that he is also a citizen of America, and he is a part of American culture and history. The diction of the word “too” further reinforces the belief that blacks are also citizens of America, just like their white counterparts.
stifled throes” . Examples of similes in the poem include “My friends forsake me like a memory lost”,
The imagery begins to become more defined as the poem progresses. For instance, she states “He ...
The poem begins with a question: "What happens to a dream deferred?” The speaker of the poem at this point is unnamed. By not knowing the speaker, the question is strengthened, as the deferred dream is the dreams and desires of all the people within the African American community. The form of the question, being a single-line stanza, helps raise silence after the question, allowing the readers to open their minds.
.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.
Looking at the language of the poem you can see many metaphors are created throughout the poem. Within the ...