Harlem Renaissance Research Paper

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Research Paper
The Harlem Renaissance was a very impactful time period for many African American’s during the 1920’s in Harlem, New York. During this decade many African Americans expressed themselves through writing, singing, or even dancing. One such inspirational poet during the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes. Hughes was famous for his poems pertaining to the widespread sense of equality that blacks desired at this time. In “Mother to Son”, “Dream Variations”, and “The Weary Blues”, Hughes demonstrates the hope and struggles of African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance through the use of symbolism, restatement, and personification to develop the theme that the ignorance of society contradicts the desire of people.
In “Mother …show more content…

In this poem Hughes writes, "Dark like me" (Hughes l. 8), and goes on to say "Black like me" (Hughes l. 17). Hughes writes a poem that depicts the difference between a dream life and reality, and a man's wish for a carefree life away from color prosecution and racism. Through the use of repeated phrases, Hughes describes how impossible this desire is for black people. No matter where African Americans turn they are reminded of what they cannot do because they are not white, but they still desire to live in a world where they are not segregated due to their race. Even today children are taught the connotations that white is pure and good and black is evil. Imagine living a life where a person is considered 'evil' due to their skin color because a white person says so or because whites are too ignorant to see that black people are actually people who have dreams and desires like they do. White people do not understand that the principles that they teach young people today affect how they feel about themselves later on. White people are also ignorant in the fact that these principles have not been stopped, and do not give African Americans the opportunity to tell whites how wrong they are. Due to white people’s ignorance and faulty principles, African Americans cannot achieve their desires for equality. Just the same, in a scholarly article, Cindy Dyson writes, “He was black, poor, and full of …show more content…

By using personification Hughes allows readers to interpret how the ignorance of society contradicts the desire of people. For example, in "The Weary Blues" Hughes writes, “He made the poor piano moan with melody” (Hughes l.10). In this poem, the narrator is watching an old man on Lennox Ave. play the blues. Through this statement the narrator personifies the piano through the way he describes how the piano moans, which is a human trait. The Negro man is forcing the piano to moan through the constant pain of playing that he puts the piano through, and this is like the Negro man’s life. Due to inequality whites placed upon the black man, the man, much like the piano moaning, is not able to live a simplistic life because of the barriers of racial inequality. Whites’ are to blacks’ feelings and think that they are able to oppress African Americans through segregation, which takes away any hope of achieving equality. White peoples’ ignorance robs African Americans from having this desire to the point where people and “pianos” are left in pain. In an article, Tom Verde, quotes Hughes: “Six months in one place is long enough to make one’s life complicated” (2). Hughes did not live a simplistic life due to his family and racial situations. His dad left his home due to racism (2). White ignorance ran African Americans out of the

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