Analysis Of Harlem Sweeties By Langston Hughes

Cullen is hopeful to get to a place where people of different races will be able to look at others without prejudice and discrimination. However, the poem “Incident” is of a less positive tone. She expresses her experience in a shocked manner, saying, a boy stuck his “tongue out and, called, [her] ‘Nigger’,” (Cullen 8). She was so shocked that “From May until December; .../… of all the things that happened... /… that’s all [she could remember” in Baltimore (Cullen 10-12). At the young age that she was at, it is surprising and upsetting to her to be discriminated against for no reason.

Thesis statement: Hughes wrote this when Jim Crow laws were still imposing an bitter segregated society in the South. There were still lynchings of innocent African Americans, there was no Civil Rights Movement, there was no Civil Rights legislation yet, and Blacks couldn't eat at lunch counters in the South. Harlem, however, was not at all like the South in terms of blatant, legal segregation. However, racism was very much in place in many places in America. Blacks were second class citizens, their children attended schools that were ill-equipped, and the dreams of Black citizens were not being realized in this period.

Langston Hughes was the leading voice of African American people in his time, speaking through his poetry to represent blacks. His Influence through his poems are seen widely not just by blacks but by those who enjoy poetry in other races and social classes. Hughes poems, Harlem, The Negro speaks of rivers, Theme for English B, and Negro are great examples of his output for the racial inequality between the blacks and whites. The relationship between whites and blacks are rooted in America's history for the good and the bad. Hughes poems bring the history at large and present them in a proud manner. The injustice that blacks face because of their history of once being in bondage is something they are constantly reminded and ridiculed for but must overcome and bring to light that the thoughts of slavery and inequality will be a lesson and something to remember for a different future where that kind of prejudice is not found so widely.

In conclusion, the poem was used as a key to unlock some of the thoughts the negro had concerning Africa. The negro in this poem was a representative of all negroes during this time; their thoughts and the their feelings toward Africa. Cullen’s usage of the literary devices allow for an effective expression of the meaning of this poem. Poems are intensified language of experience, so the devices assured the connection of the reader to the poem and the experience. This applies to many issues in society today because as beautiful as our country is there are still dark clouds that cover the very essence of what the states once stood

The poem ?The Negro Speaks of Rivers? by Langston Hughes contains many symbolic meanings about the identity of African Americans. Throughout the poem Hughes uses metaphorical statements to suggest to the reader what the soul of the African American has been through. The symbols of the old rivers from which the African American ideal has risen can be interpreted in many different ways. They represent the birth and growth of the African American culture, and some of the most significant moments of their past. The words written in this poem represent the pride and knowledge of a group of outstanding people.

The poem ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’ by Langston Hughes is about a man with a vast knowledge and understanding of rivers. The first two sentences of the poem are similar, as in both Hughes states, ‘I’ve known rivers’. From this the reader gathers that this man has been around rivers and probably lived around rivers. He talks about different experiences he has had on four different rivers. For example he says, ‘I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young’ and this gives the impression that he was around long ago when the river was just starting to form. Another quote, ‘I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans’ shows a passage of time from

Langston Hughes was a successful African-American poet of the Harlem renaissance in the 20th century. Hughes' had a simple and cultured writing style. "Harlem" is filled with rhythm, jazz, blues, imagery, and evokes vivid images within the mind. The poem focuses on what could happen to deferred dreams. Hughes' aim is to make it clear that if you postpone your dreams you might not get another chance to attain it--so take those dreams and run. Each question associates with negative effects of deferred dreams. The imagery from the poem causes the reader to be pulled in by the writer's words.

Two poems are not as widely anthologized, but are thematically comparable in the manner Hughes expresses the disparity among the American Dream and the fact of life for African people in the course of the early twentieth Century.

A difference in the two poets definitely comes into play when we look at of the speakers in these poems. Hughes’ persona is that of a black male looking back on how the black race was treated badly, but he is expressing the beauty in their struggle. Hughes talks about why black Americans should achieve their goals, “On the Cultural Achievements of African Americans”

Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem” sums up white oppression on black people in America. Hughes packs so much significance into the eleven-line poem that would help inspire other influential works such as A Raisin in the Sun and possibly the “I had a dream” speech from Martin Luther King. In “Harlem” Hughes uses simile and diction to show how dreams being deferred can frustrate the human spirit.

One of his earliest poems, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, was written in 1921, long before Hughes would actually travel the world. However, without knowing the authors background and history, one might think it was written by a wise man of old age. Having only lived in various places in the United States, Hughes wrote this poem of an African American man who has seen the world, full with things many people never get to see, that nourished his soul and formed bonds with humans' deepest roots. The four rivers the narrator is mentioning, the Euphrates, the Congo river, the Nile and the Mississippi river, are all of great importance not only in the lives of all human beings, but slaves in particular.

In Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” used rivers to describe African American people and I agree he described them to be equal, using metaphors, similes, and allusions. Langston Hughes wrote this poem in 1921 when racial issues between Caucasian and African American people were a significant problem. The poem is written in “free verse” and uses anaphora to give the reader the effect that he is the one telling the poem. The poem gives the reader the understanding that African American people have been around for as long as Caucasian people and are equally intelligent. The rivers give us a great meaning to the history of African American people and the narrator has known their struggle. There is a feeling of death towards the end of the poem. This gives the reader the impression that we are still struggling to be equal and it has withered him until his death.

Langston Hughes poem Harlem “Harlem” the theme of this poem is pursuing dreams, not letting go till it comes to the path. But nevertheless, if you pursue afterward your dreams, that doesn’t mean they are bound to come true. Many blacks didn’t have their dream come true. African American dreams were deferred, thousands of blacks believed as

In Langston Hughes “The Negro speaks of Rivers”, the speaker sets a tone while makes a connect between himself and the earth he lived on. Rivers have

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement and the enlightenment of black minds as a whole. This movement sparked the minds of many leaders such as Marcus Garvey, W.E.B Dubois, and Langston Hughes, these men would also come to be known as the earliest Civil Rights activists. While Garvey and Dubois expressed their views in speeches and rallies Hughes had a different approach and chose to articulate his thoughts and views through literature more specifically poetry. Through his poetry, Hughes became a world renown poet for such works as “Let America Be America Again”, “Harlem” and “I Too” taken from his first book “The Weary Blues.” These poems while written and inspired by the everyday struggles of being an African-American were arguably targeted at white Americans. Hughes wrote a majority of his work during the Harlem Renaissance and as a result focused on “injustice” and “change” in the hopes that society would recognize their mistake and reconcile, but in order for this to happen he would have to target the right audience.