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Langston Hughes and his contribution to American literature
Langston Hughes and the contribution of African American literature
Langston Hughes and the contribution of African American literature
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“...Put your pistol to your head and go to Fiddlers’ Green.” Throughout literary history, epic stories of heroes dying for their gods and their countries have called men to battle and romanticized death, but Langston Hughes approaches the subject in a different way. He addresses death as a concept throughout much of his work. From his allusions to the inevitability of death to his thoughts on the inherent injustice in death, the concept of human mortality is well addressed within his works. In Hughes’ classic work, “Poem to a Dead Soldier,” he describes death in quite unflattering terms as he profusely apologizes to a soldier sent to fight and die for his country. This view of death as unromantic and undesirable stands in stark contrast to a classic fable of unknown origin …show more content…
“Fiddlers’ Green,” a poem with somewhat murky and esoteric origins, is a perfect example of one such piece. The very concept of Fiddlers’ Green has been passed down in stories, sea shanties, poems, and other literary mediums, though one of the most popular interpretations of the fable was penned by one Colonel Stodter of the United States Army in 1923. It describes an afterlife spent with fellow cavalrymen in an army canteen where they may drink freely together. Not only does this piece talk about death and the afterlife in a positive light, referring to “...a shady meadow, green,” (Crosby 10) and “...a good old-time canteen” (Crosby 10), but the poem actually ends with encouragement to die on the battlefield. The final lines of the poem read read, “And put your pistol to your head / And go to fiddlers’ green.”(Crosby 10) While suicide on a battlefield may not be an ideal death, the story of Fiddlers’ Green reassures that all good cavalrymen end up in an eternal paradise, and in doing so romanticizes the idea of dying while fighting for one’s
Death is an intriguing thing. From time immemorial we have feared it, used it, pondered it. Frequently, stories allow the reader into the minds of those immediatly surrounding the one who will die; but all of us "will die." Our morbid interest is in dying, the going, that threshold between death and life. What happens there? There are similiarities and differences in how death appears to the protagonist, written by Ambrose Bierce in An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge, and Ernest Hemingway in The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Bierce offers An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge to show the incredible fantasy that passes through the mind of a man as he dies. Hemingway's engrossing description lies in The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Here, on the African savannah, a man encounters death slowly and with excruciating lucidness. While the differences between the two stories are easy to enumerate, it is the simliarities that may offer the most insight into the minds of the authors and, perhaps, into the minds of us all. The setting for An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge is northern Alabama during the Civil War. Peyton Farquhar (Peyton) is said to be a planter who is left behind by the Confederate Army due to circumstances "...of an imperious nature," but he longs for the "release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction." Immaturity seems the watchword for him; the eagerness with which he swallows the bait presented by a Union spy may give a glimpse of the lack of gravity in Peyton's character that leads to his capture and to the fantastic attempt at escape or denial that his mind fabricates just before his death. Peyton is not a realist. Harry is a realist. The protagonist in The Snows of Kilimanjaro faces his pending doom with distinct clarity and resignation. In fact, his insistance greatly distrubs his wife (naturally) who tries to cheer him up by telling him that help is only a day away, and all that is needed to make it is a positive attitude. Harry is positive. He is certain that he will die very soon. He knows the mistake that has sealed his fate. Although he would change the past if he could, he does not seem to lament his end except for the writing he will never do.
One must look at this poem and imagine what is like to live thru this experience of becoming so tired of expecting to die everyday on the battlefield, that one starts to welcome it in order to escape the anticipation. The effects of living day in and day out in such a manner creates a person who either has lost the fear of death or has become so frighten of how they once lived the compensate for it later by living a guarded life. The one who loses the fear for death ends up with this way of living in which they only feel alive when faced with death. The person in this poem is one who has lost their fear of death, and now thrives off coming close to it he expresses it when he states “Here is the adrenaline rush you crave, that inexorable flight, that insane puncture” (LL.6-7). What happens to this persona when he leaves the battlefield? He pushes the limit trying to come close to death to feel alive; until they push
While other soldiers were buried after they fell in battle on the ground the gunner in the turret was instead washed out with a hose. “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” vividly puts the idea in the reader’s face that there was no dignity or honor in his death. The irony in the poem is that the gunner was fighting for a grand cause in a massively important conflict yet the man died in a horrible and repulsive way. Ultimately The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner was a poem more about reflection and thought than about answers. It sought to cope with tragedy by talking about it rather than rationalizing
It is inevitable when dealing regularly with a subject as brutal as war, that death will occur. Death brings grief for the victim’s loved ones, which William Faulkner depicts accurately and fairly in many of his works, including the short story “Shall Not Perish” and The Unvanquished. While the works differ because of the time (The Unvanquished deals with the Civil War while “Shall Not Perish” takes place during World War II) and the loved ones grieving (The Unvanquished shows the grief of a lover and “Shall Not Perish” shows the grief of families), the pain they all feel is the same.
For much of recorded history, humans have fixated on the concept of mortality and of making proper use of their brief time spent on earth. These notions are evident across centuries of literature, the urgency of “carpe diem,” or of seizing the day, originating from Horace even before the time of anno Domini. Despite the overwhelming pervasiveness of these themes in every epoch, the sense of exigency surrounding them is only compounded with the added complication of war and the veritable maelstrom of death that accompanies its trials. Because of the military past of the United States, the use of these ideals in literature persists with American authors as well. Specifically, in the writings of the post-Civil War era, the use of death and wasted
"BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE." This phrase is run on commercials in an attempt to try and recruit men and women to enlist in the United States Army. The commercial shows men and women completing obstacles and high tech training. Some other commercials for the United States Armed Forces use tactics, such as; awarding money for college after the recruit has spent a given amount of time in their Army, Navy, or Air Force. But, what the commercials fail to do is to depict the reality of any soldier's life post war. These commercials are not alone with false advertisement of war; Hollywood movies and books have also contributed. Society has come to glorify war and have forgotten the consequences of the men and women who went to fight for their country.
Langston Hughes’s poem, I continue to dream, has a lot of similarities to the song Masterpiece, written by Jessie J. They both contain confidence within each piece and both pieces send the same message to their audience. The common message is to not listen to any of the negative comments and carry on with your own personal growth and goals in life. Even though they are both written in two different time periods, they both carry and show the same vision. I Continue to Dream is about how the writer has built his dream from nothing and continues to strengthen his dream and not caring about anyone’s opinion regarding the matter. Masterpiece is about Jessie J’s life and how she has grown over the years and continues to do so;
The speaker started the poem by desiring the privilege of death through the use of similes, metaphors, and several other forms of language. As the events progress, the speaker gradually changes their mind because of the many complications that death evokes. The speaker is discontent because of human nature; the searching for something better, although there is none. The use of language throughout this poem emphasized these emotions, and allowed the reader the opportunity to understand what the speaker felt.
All throughout literature there have been many stories and poems that have been written by many famous authors. Doing a lot of my research that I have done before I have found that a lot of poems and stories have some sort of thing to do with death or dying. While looking through my Comp II book, I came across two stories that caught my eye: “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Conner and “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway. Both stories talk both death and what it is like to witness death.
Fabienne Verrando Mr. Peterson College English 101, Period 2 21 October 2016 Compare and Contrast The poems “To an Athlete Dying Young” by Alfred Housman and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas have conflicting opinions on what to do when an individual reaches the point of lying on their deathbed. After reading both poems, one starts to ponder whether they should fight for their life or give in to the Grim Reaper’s kiss, given that death is inevitable. While these poems can be connected by a central theme, the methods and messages conveying the theme are radically different. Upon reading these two pieces, it becomes extremely evident that their thesis is death.
It is interesting to think about why our ancestors decided to include the pursuit of happiness as an American’s unalienable right, as opposed to the previously considered, right to land. To live a life without happiness, it seemed to them, is to live a life without meaning. Edgar Lee Masters’ poems commonly reflect on the quality, or lack thereof, of happiness in the afterlife of dead countrymen (and women). The diction, word choice and imagery in Fiddler Jones by Masters expresses the seemingly inherent joy of a lackadaisical man as well as the value of perspectives and the ability to posit happiness over fortune and land.
is an honor to die. The poet in the Into Battle talks about life in a
Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” teaches an invaluable lesson to the reader early on in the poem: always struggle until your last breath. Through the use of the poetic form of villanelle, a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains, Thomas portrays the emotional struggle of a young man pleading with his father on his deathbed, exclaiming that he needs to cling on to life and not pass away without leaving an impact on society. Throughout the poem, he asserts that old men at the ends of their lives should resist death as strongly as they can, encouraging them to struggle and rage, infuriated that they have to die at all. Over the course of the poem, we discover the speaker holds a personal stake in the issue: his own father is dying. Upon further reflection, it is clear to the reader that the driving purpose behind the poem is that through so much
This poem paints a beautiful picture of how a man realizes how much he loves his country, England. As he travels far, one might think that he comes across those whom he is unfamiliar with. After reading the first stanza the poem leaves the reader with a vague, unsure thought of what or who the man is encountering, this allows for imagination to be thought. But, after reading the rest of the poem it is clear who the unknown men might have been or what point the author was trying to make. Though this man was traveling and viewing different sites he realized his utmost love for his home.
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is a poem composed by Thomas Gray over a period of ten years. Beginning shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West in 1742, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was first published in 1751. This poem’s use of dubbal entendre may lead the intended audience away from the overall theme of death, mourning, loss, despair and sadness; however, this poem clearly uses several literary devices to convey the author’s feelings toward the death of his friend Richard West, his beloved mother, aunt and those fallen soldiers of the Civil War. This essay will discuss how Gray uses that symbolism and dubbal entendre throughout the poem to convey the inevitability of death, mourning, conflict within self, finding virtue in one’s life, dealing with one’s misfortunes and giving recognition to those who would otherwise seem insignificant.