The Sun Rises
Mankind, through its hardships and struggles, has created many outlets to tell of its trials and tribulations. People have a need to relate their stories to other people. Music, art, prose, cinema, and poetry are among some of the most common types of storytelling. Poetry is one of the oldest and strongest forms of telling a story. It has often been used to chronicle the hardships of a group of people who were held back from many personal freedoms our society takes for granted. Gwendolyn Brooks' people have had one of the hardest struggles placed upon any of the races that make up America. Brooks touches upon the hardships of her people and their ancestors in many of her poems. In 'To the Diaspora,'; Brooks uses the metaphors of the continent of Afrika, a road (or a journey), the sun, and a few others to tell of the struggle of African-Americans in the United States.
The first metaphor the narrator speaks of is of the continent of Afrika. The word Afrika is used to mean a group of people and not the literal meaning of a continent of land. More specifically, these people are African-Americans. The 'Black continent'; she speaks of is a unification of her people (5). The narrator is telling her ancestors that they need to unite to make any progress. In the passage: 'You did not know the Black continent to be reached was you,'; she is telling her people, past and present, that the way to achieve their goals is within them (5-7). The narrator uses the word Afrika instead of
Matt Parsons
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Africa to distinguish between the continent and the meaning she has placed upon the word. Through this metaphor the word Afrika comes to mean a continent of people, and their goals to achieve equality, instead of a continent of land.
The next metaphor the narrator speaks of is one of a journey or way over a road. Gwendolyn speaks about her people setting out for Afrika. In the beginning of the poem we know that the people are beginning a journey but they do not know their destination. This gives us a glimpse into how hard the struggle of African-Americans must have been in the beginning of slavery. As the poem progresses into the second stanza, a road emerges and this lets us know that the narrator's people are getting some ideas about where they should be going.
Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, to KeziahWims Brooks and David Anderson Brooks. Brooks’ family didn’t have much income. Her father David Brooks was a janitor. Keziah Brooks, Gwendolyn’s mother was a school teacher. Soon after Gwendolyn was born her family moved away from Kansas. The Brooks family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where Brooks remained the rest of her life. Brooks, as a child, loved to read. She was encouraged by her family and friends to do so. She spent most of her childhood immersed in her writing. Gwendolyn became a published poet at an early age. At age 13, Brooks’ poem Eventide was published. Her poem appeared in “American Childhood.” Brooks’ poems were frequently published in the Chicago Defender. At age 16, Brooks had written over seventy poems (J.Williams 28).In Brooks’ early years of writing she spoke on a lot. She talked about racial discrimination and praised African American heroes. Also, Brooks satirized both blacks and whites (A.williams1). In 1993, Gwendolyn meet poet James Weldon Johnson and writer Langston Hughes. The two influenced Brooks’ writing tremendously. The influence lead her to write over seventy poems (Bloom 12).
This poem describes the worry of decision-making and the rewards of forging your own path. The subject of the poem is faced with a decision of taking the "safe" route that others have taken before or breaking new ground. He finds that making original and independent choices makes life rewarding. One poetic device is imagery described in the lines, “long I stood/ And looked down one as far as I could/ To where it bent in the undergrowth;” (lines 3-5). The imagery is used to describe his sight of the not literal two paths that he could choose. One form of figurative language used is Metaphors. This poem is attractive because is its very inspirational to me at a time where I am making a lot of important
The first line in "The Road Not Taken" is "two roads diverged in a yellow wood” (Frost 1). This gives the reader right off of two separate choices that the traveler can choose. The second line is "and sorry I could not travel both” (frost 2). This lets the reader know that in fact the traveler did choose one path. Just by reading the first two lines the reader can already feel the tone of being decisive. Throughout the poem it gives great descriptions as the travel compares to two paths. An example of this one would be line 8, "Because it was grassy and wanted wear". This statement also lets the reader know that the traveler already knew which one to pick by the looks of the road, thus road being the less traveled upon. At the end of the poem, the line 19 &20 lets us know the traveler has made a decision. Though in the traveler’s words one can almost sense sadness. The traveler explains that one day he would like to go back and travel the other path.
Gwendolyn Brooks is the female poet who has been most responsive to changes in the black community, particularly in the community’s vision of itself. The first African American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize; she was considered one of America’s most distinguished poets well before the age of fifty. Known for her technical artistry, she has succeeded in forms as disparate as Italian terza rima and the blues. She has been praised for her wisdom and insight into the African Experience in America. Her works reflect both the paradises and the hells of the black people of the world. Her writing is objective, but her characters speak for themselves. Although the idiom is local, the message is universal. Brooks uses ordinary speech, only words that will strengthen, and richness of sound to create effective poetry.
In 1942, Margaret Walker won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her poem For My People. This accomplishment heralded the beginning of Margaret Walker’s literary career which spanned from the brink of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s to the cusp of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s (Gates and McKay 1619). Through her fiction and poetry, Walker became a prominent voice in the African-American community. Her writing, especially her signature novel, Jubilee, exposes her readers to the plight of her race by accounting the struggles of African Americans from the pre-Civil War period to the present and ultimately keeps this awareness relevant to contemporary American society.
The poem “Southern Road” by Sterling Brown is about a man in prison contemplating his life. On either side of the jail fences, his life is depressing, and the blues tone sets the mood. Two prominent characteristics of the poem is the low language dialect and onomatopoeia. Brown uses these literary devices to paint a picture. He does not mention that the protagonist is black or that he is from the south, but from his dialect, the readers are able to tell his ethnicity. The literary devices used in the poem reveals the story of the protagonist and captivates the hardships of African American.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler” (Page 756 Stanza 1). This is the beginning of an iambic tetrameter by Robert Frost in which he expresses the thoughts of the speaker as they come to a fork in the road. The speaker faces a dilemma of deciding which path to take. Frost uses a closed form with a rhyme scheme of “ABAAB.” The speaker reaching the fork in the road is symbolism for a particular decision that he must make in life. The first stanza is setting up the situation in which the speaker must observe both choices and make a decision and stick with it. This poem allows the reader to use their imagination and is also relatable in everyone’s everyday lives. In “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost uses a good rhyme scheme, description, and symbolism to describe an important life decision as well as show the thoughts of the speaker as he makes this decision.
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.
The poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” symbolically connects the fate of the speaker of the poem and his African American community to the indestructible and powerful force on Earth- the river. The river embodies both power and dominance but also a sense of comfort. The poem is a prime example of the message of hope and perseverance to anyone who has suffered or is currently suffering oppression and inequality in their lives and in society. The speaker in the poem pledges to the reader that with hard-work, determination, and willpower to succeed, he will get where he is going regardless of the obstacles and challenges he may face on his path of reaching his goals in life.
...that white racism is not completely confined to South Africa. It is possible, for instance, that some whites in America might gain in humanity if they could say with an open heart: "My mother is Africa." Here are some quotes by readers: “Everything a novel can be: convincing, thought-provoking, upsetting, unforgettable, and timeless."—Grace Ingoldby , “Fiela’s Child is a parade that broadens and humanizes our understanding of the conflicts still affecting South Africa today."—Francis Levy
“And sorry I could not travel both” (2), the speaker is coming to a decision. In everyone’s life, they must make a decision to follow God or not to follow God. In this poem, the speaker has to make this choice. He tries to look down both roads as far as he can to see the choices that might result from taking either path. “Yet knowing how way leads on to way” (14), he knows that this decision is not temporary. He knows that once he chooses a path, he “doubted if I should ever come back” (15[VR1] ).
The two roads presented in this poem represent difficult decisions we are faced with in life. He uses the relationship between the paths and real life decisions throughout the whole poem. This is an example of extended metaphor, which is used to help the readers understand the analogy between the two. The man in the poem said: “long I stood” (3), which lets us know the decision was not made instantly. It was hard for the man to make a final judgment.
Lyric poetry is based off song and establishes human condition, in this poem the condition of African Americans.
The overarching theme throughout the entire poem is that of choices. The concept of “two roads diverged,” or a split in the road, is a metaphor representing a choice which the narrator must make. Being “sorry [he] could not travel both… [being] one traveler” illustrates that, although he wishes he could see the results of both choices, as seen in saying he “looked as far as [he] could to where it bent,” he is but one pers...
The main theme of the poem that Frost attempts to convey is how important the decisions that one makes can be, and how they affect one’s future. In lines 2-3, he expresses the emotions of doubt and confusion by saying, “And sorry I could not travel/ And be one traveler, long I stood”, which explains how the speaker contemplated their decision of which road to take. In the closing, line 20 of the poem further reestablishes the theme when it states, “that has made all the difference”, meaning that making the decision of which road to take for themselves is the important key for a successful future. Frost helps to express this theme by using symbolism to portray a road as one’s journey of life. Using symbolism, Frost suggests that the speaker of this poem is taking the harder of the two roads presented before them, because the road the speaker chooses, “leaves no step had trodden black” (12...