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Langston Hughes I Hear America Singing

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Hughes’s role in I, Too and Harlem is to evoke meaningful thought and consideration to America’s idea of equality and bring focus to the black struggle while providing a hopeful spirit to his fellow African Americans. The first line of the poem I,Too, written by Langston Hughes, is an allusion to Walt Whitman’s I Hear America Singing. Whitman’s poem is about unity. It goes on to explain how during this time, America was living the ‘American dream’. Much of the poem refers to singing, which further enables the reader to believe in the unity he is talking about. Although Whitman’s poem was talking highly of America in its day, Hughes had a different idea of unity and what the American dream consists of. Whitman’s poem was written in the late …show more content…

Guilt, shame, remorse, regret, sadness, anger, and wonder are all likely possibilities; however Hughes uses analogies such as ‘fester like a sore’ and ‘crust and sugar over’ to show the reader what happens to dreams that are not lived out to their potential. By having the reader compare sores and stinking meat to the failure of dreams not sought out, he sends the reader’s thoughts to disappointing results. In a few words Hughes gives a pep-talk to his readers, encouraging them to pursue any and all their dreams, which are not to ever be wasted. With Harlem being the title of this poem, it’s easy to see how this vision of not letting go of your dreams was directed at the Harlem community. Harlem was the hub of African American residency, culture, and art. The role Hughes plays in Harlem is to get the reader to believe in their self, to overcome oppression, to seize opportunities and rise above the restraints that society had put on the African American community. By beginning with a question, Hughes role of steering thoughts in a specific direction has started. He takes short and graceful analogies that provide grotesque pictures for the reader. The imagery does its duty to call images to the thought of each reader, which arouse the thought, “How wasteful! And horrible!” The reader is now confronted with the internal question of whether to pursue dreams or let them waste and rot. Hughes role as the poet to get the wheels turning so to speak, is crafted so well that the reader is confronted with changing their own behaviors after reading a short poem, no more than eleven

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