I am choosing “The Ballad of the Landlord” by Langston Hughes as a model for my own poem. I am choosing this poem because it relates to what is going on in the African American community and other minorities. This poem talks about racial injustice within the African American community and also about white privileges that are often used to overpower other minorities. This poem inspires me because I can relate to what the author is feeling in the poem. Also because I witness racial injustice every day whether it is in my personal life or from the everyday media. This inspires me to write about my opinion on racial injustice and racism. In the same manner, I want to educate my readers more about the social injustice in America. I feel as if …show more content…
most people do not care about the issue because it is not affecting them or it doesn’t seem as important as other issues. My goal is to keep informing people on the issue because every day the media comes out with a story that is sometimes used to make people forget about what is really important.
I chose to use more dark words in this poem because I want the reader to understand that the issue of police brutality is very serious. The word choices I used are meant to get a visual representation of what it would be like to be in a situation of that manner. I want the reader to feel the same emotion the victims of police brutality felt. I used onomatopoeia as a literary figure in this poem because I wanted to emphasize the impact of the police officer shooting the victim in my poem. It also brings more variety in the poem and attracts the reader attention to the phrases that were used. At the same time, it adds more intensity to the poem by setting the tone of the poem at the same time. My tone for the poem is death and sadness. Also, the poem is written in the manner to keep the reader interested while reading. It is written this way to make it easier to relate and understand what is going on in the poem. While I was writing my poem I am trying to bring awareness to the corrupt justice system and how they handle each police brutality
case. I want my readers to know that I am not against police because not all police are evil. In the same sense that not all cases have some people that are violent. But for the ones who are killed for no apparent issue is a concern. This is concerning because now it is affecting even the younger kids. Kids who are eleven even younger are being killed by police because they feel like they are a threat. I do not understand how can a jury free man who has killed an innocent person based on the fact they police uses the excuse that he felt endangered. The goal of my poem is to educate and voice my opinion on the very sensitive matter. This essay has made think about how I write even more. Before I was only writing to get through with the work and make a good grade. I never really took the time to actually care about my writing. It also gave me the chance to brighten my vocabulary and my sentence choices. I also learned to be more creative and write about what is important instead of writing about unnecessary things just to meet the required length for my paper. On that note, I know I still have a lot to learn to improve my writing skills. But with every day that passes, I learn more useful knowledge that I can use to better my next writing assignment.
In his poems, Langston Hughes treats racism not just a historical fact but a “fact” that is both personal and real. Hughes often wrote poems that reflect the aspirations of black poets, their desire to free themselves from the shackles of street life, poverty, and hopelessness. He also deliberately pushes for artistic independence and race pride that embody the values and aspirations of the common man. Racism is real, and the fact that many African-Americans are suffering from a feeling of extreme rejection and loneliness demonstrate this claim. The tone is optimistic but irritated. The same case can be said about Wright’s short stories. Wright’s tone is overtly irritated and miserable. But this is on the literary level. In his short stories, he portrays the African-American as a suffering individual, devoid of hope and optimism. He equates racism to oppression, arguing that the African-American experience was and is characterized by oppression, prejudice, and injustice. To a certain degree, both authors are keen to presenting the African-American experience as a painful and excruciating experience – an experience that is historically, culturally, and politically rooted. The desire to be free again, the call for redemption, and the path toward true racial justice are some of the themes in their
The 1930’s were an interesting time for many African-Americans. Even though they had been freed from slavery decades ago, they still felt oppression. Langston Hughes does a fantastic job of describing this oppression in the poem “Ballad of the Landlord”. The author’s purpose for writing this poem is to show the problems that African-Americans dealt with in the 1930’s which is exemplified through the use of hyperbole, change of lines in stanzas, and repetition.
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.
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.
“Theme for English B” and “Let American be American again” share some similar elements. These poems both written by Langston Hughes both explain about inequality. Theme for English B revolves around the separation of the black and white man; the differences within each race were segregation was at a high point. Let America be America again revolves around the concept that America is supposed to be the land of the free, but to another race or background; it’s a total opposite. (I guess that being colored doesn’t make me not like the other folks who are other races. - Theme for English B). ...
This image is the author’s perspective on the treatment of “his people” in not only his hometown of Harlem, but also in his own homeland, the country in which he lives. The author’s dream of racial equality is portrayed as a “raisin in the sun,” which “stinks like rotten meat” (Hughes 506). Because Hughes presents such a blatantly honest and dark point of view such as this, it is apparent that the author’s goal is to ensure that the reader is compelled to face the issues and tragedies that are occurring in their country, compelled enough to take action. This method may have been quite effective in exposing the plight of African-Americans to Caucasians. It can be easily seen that Hughes chooses a non-violent and, almost passive method of evoking a change. While Hughes appears to be much less than proud of his homeland, it is apparent that he hopes for a future when he may feel equal to his fellow citizens, which is the basis of the “dream” that has been
Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes wrote the poem “Ballad of the Landlord” in 1940, a time of immense discrimination against people of African descent. The poem details an account of a tenant, later found out to be an African American, who is dissatisfied with his rental property. The tenant is politely asking the landlord to make the needed repairs on the realty, but instead the landlord demands to be paid. The tenant refuses to pay the rent, and the police are called after a threat is made towards the landlord. The police arrest the tenant; he is jailed for ninety days with no bail. Langston Hughes’s “Ballad of the Landlord” is a startling poem that underlines the discrimination African Americans had to cope with in the nineteen-forties by illustrating an account of an African American tenant’s troubles with a Caucasian landlord through the use of theme, dialect, tone and multiple speakers.
This poem is written from the perspective of an African-American from a foreign country, who has come to America for the promise of equality, only to find out that at this time equality for blacks does not exist. It is written for fellow black men, in an effort to make them understand that the American dream is not something to abandon hope in, but something to fight for. The struggle of putting up with the racist mistreatment is evident even in the first four lines:
Langston Hughes was an activist for the African-American community and made significant artistic contributions to the Harlem Renaissance throughout his career. In one of his most famous poems, “Harlem [Dream Deferred]”, he addresses the limitations and oppression of African Americans after the Great Depression. Many African Americans dreamed of equality, but often times that dream became neglected and pushed aside. In his poem, Hughes responds to a question about a deferred dream with a series of vivid similes, inquiring what happens to a constantly ignored dream.
One of the advantages of how he wrote his poetry is that it can take hold of people by exemplifying his accounts of the everyday life that the disenfranchised experience. Hughes took on the injustices that other dared no to speak of. He wrote about how the African-American people of the 1920’s suffered the plight of racial inequality. In many cases I believe that Hughes used his writing as an instrument of change. In “Come to the Waldorf-Astoria” (506) Hughes tackles the drastic disparity between wealthy whites and the African Americans of the 1930’s. This piece displays an unconventional style for a poem; using satire to capture the reader’s attention. By using this satiric form of poetry Hughes is able to play on the emotions of the white reader, while at the same time inspiring the black readers. Hughes is constantly comparing the luxuries of the Waldorf-Astoria to the hardships that the African American people were experiencing. “It's cold as he...
I will discuss the similarities by which these poems explore themes of death and violence through the language, structure and imagery used. In some of the poems I will explore the characters’ motivation for targeting their anger and need to kill towards individuals they know personally whereas others take out their frustration on innocent strangers. On the other hand, the remaining poems I will consider view death in a completely different way by exploring the raw emotions that come with losing a loved one.
... 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.
Thesis: The poems “Negro”, “I Too”, and “Song for a Dark Girl” by Langston Hughes was written around an era of civil inequality. A time when segregation was a customary thing and every African American persevered through civil prejudice. Using his experience, he focuses his poems on racial and economic inequality. Based on his biographical information, he uses conflict to illustrate the setting by talking about hardships only a Negro would comprehend and pride only a Negro can experience, which helps maintain his racial inequality theme.
The Parable of the Wicked Tenants and enhances Godly characteristics. This parable explains what happens when one is denied over and over again. There is story to this parable, Sin is something that everyone does, but why does one choose to do it over and over again.
Langston Hughes “The ballad of a landlord” had an ironic twist when the speaker ended up in jail. The landlord thought that the man was lawfully wrong because he “threaten the government.” The landlord didn’t fix the speakers house because of the color of his skin. This poem can be useful today because of the racial tension that is happening today. Many African American face problem with social injustices every day just because the color of their skin isn’t like everybody else’s. The community gets profiles as soon as they enter the room. Langston Hughes poem is one that brings the audience along to inform them that the African American community is still dealing with a problem with something as simple as living in an