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Langston hughes poems about racial injustices
Problems with racism in literature
Langston hughes analysis
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The plain and colloquial language in Langston Hughes’s “Cross” such as “old man” (1, 3, 9), “ma” (10), and “gonna” (11) is appropriate to the speaker’s straight forward discourse about the challenges faced by a racially mixed young man . This language successfully portrays the speaker’s wise, yet simple perception of the difficulties he is facing as a biracial child born into slavery. This ordinary dialect effectively represents the characters and setting of this tragic poem. The speaker uses his vernacular to transport the audience to a place and time relevant to the subject of the poem.
Langston Hughes eloquently introduces three main characters to the audience in this brief yet striking poem. He first introduces a young, confused, and angry speaker to the audience. This young man is represented as “Being neither white nor black” (Hughes 12). The weight of this simple yet important statement could easily be missed by the casual reader. Hughes uses this statement to successfully demonstrate the confusion and anger felt by this biracial young man. The reader is next introduced to...
Writing during the emergence of the “New Negro” movement, Claude McKay and Langston Hughes work to reconcile black life in white America. The trope used by the two poets within “The Harlem Dancer” and “The Weary Blues” is that of a performance and a single speaker’s recollection of it. While both depict an African-American performer presumably consumed by the isolation and oppression of their condition, the intensity of the performances prove to be vastly disparate. Hughes’ “The Weary Blues” features a much more transcendent performance than that of McKay’s “The Harlem Dancer” not only because of the relationship between the audience and the performer, but the degree of ubiquity in descriptions of the performer and the poetic form through which the performance is framed. While neither performer attempts to gain anything from their audience, the impact of their art on the speaker identifies the importance McKay placed on art as a means to build racial pride as well as Hughes interest in art as a means to communicate a common struggle.
As a poet who paved the way for African American artists to flourish in a white dominated world, Langston Hughes changed the face of writers during the era of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes is the descendant of a mixed race and background, but he is considered the father of the “New Negro Movement.” His most noted piece of literature, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” which was written in 1926, still applies to the youth and elderly of Blacks in America. As a young black woman in America’s 21st century, the realization has been made that not many things have changed in regards to the plight of the “Negro” in America. William Pickens said, “The new Negro is not really new; he is the same Negro under new conditions and subjected to new demands” (79). This quote claims that the Negro is neither new nor old but constantly evolving based upon new situations and predicaments. “The Negro Artists and the Racial Mountain” supports the statement that Black Americans are continuously scrutinized for assimilating into Western culture but are praised for embracing Pan-Africanism.
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.
Hughes, a.k.a. Langston, a.k.a. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed.
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.
The contradiction of being both black and American was a great one for Hughes. Although this disparity was troublesome, his situation as such granted him an almost begged status; due to his place as a “black American” poet, his work was all the more accessible. Hughes’ black experience was sensationalized. Using his “black experience” as a façade, however, Hughes was able to obscure his own torments and insecurities regarding his ambiguous sexuality, his parents and their relationship, and his status as a public figure.
... 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.
Through the use of personification, Langston Hughes shows that learning is important is this story, the professor just teaches but langston is also teaching the professor that different races are equally important and that we are all the same. People in this time period were rude to black people back then then and they treated them like they were different, but Langston is trying to teach his professor that everyone is the same and know one deserves to be treated badly just from the color of their skin.”You are white--yet a part of me,as I am part of you. That's American”.This quote is langston saying that we are all the same and we are all american and nothing else is different. As a conclusion hughes was making a good point in the fact of
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."
Hughes, Langston. The Negro mother, and other dramatic recitations. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971. Print.
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.”
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.
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.
“Cross” by Langston Hughes is a sonnet that mentions one of the most prominent problems with multiracial children: racial confusion. The narrator of the poem is a mulatto that expresses his frustration at being a child of a white father and a black mother, but never entirely belonging in either race. Thus, he experiences an identity crisis, not knowing which race to feel comfortable and secure in, and he grows up to feel feelings of hatred and anger towards his parents for having an interracial marriage. Although the narrator expresses his resentfulness towards his parents initially, the connotation of the title, “Cross”, the imagery used to describe his parents, and the variation of tone throughout the sonnet, portrays that he eventually forgives his parents and decides to accept his mixed ancestry. The title of the sonnet, “Cross”, evokes numerous different meanings and feelings that encompasses the entire meaning of the poem.
Langston Hughes', "On the Road," uses beautiful symbolism and imagery. He offers a gift to his readers: Open your heart and life will provide unlimited abundance. During this literary analysis, we will take a look at how Hughes uses nature to demonstrate his main character's unwillingness to participate in life. Another point we'll examine is the use of anger and survival and how it can be used as a powerful force in breaking down racial barriers. Next, we'II look at Jesus Christ as a metaphor for how we experience life and how traditional church values contradict each other when it comes to the acceptance of human beings. Finally, we'll briefly take an historic look at how the Depression gave blacks an even playing field with whites.