The Negro Speaks Of Rivers Analysis

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In his well-known poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Langston Hughes explores a personal, though paradoxically universal, relationship with some of the world’s most notable rivers. The poem essentially describes the speaker (as a representative for the entire African-American culture) as having experienced and internalized various events surrounding rivers over a period of centuries. A river, a natural and ancient entity, is not subject to human wants or desires and therefore can simply exist while humanity crumbles around it. By including rivers spanning continents and chronologies, Hughes has successfully captured a glimpse of the human condition in its various states and sentiments. Hughes uses the river as a metaphor for transcendence of the human soul in the face of persecution. Reflecting upon the experience of the African-American people on the banks of some of the world’s greatest rivers, the narrator has cemented the will of an age-old people as being timeless and deeply rooted like the mighty waters that helped them to thrive.
Hughes covers the chronological spectrum of “r...

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