Langston Hughes's 'On Top Of The World'

“You can never tell who the mountain will allow and who it will not.” The novel “Peak” by Roland Smith shows you the thrilling journey of climbing the tallest mountain in the world. Climbing a mountain for several months doesn’t just take physical strength, but also mental strength. The story takes you through Peak Marcello’s journey to become the youngest person in the world to climb Mt.Everest. “Peak” follows a theme of love, family, and most of all survival.

In "You and Your Whole Race" by Langston Hughes he chooses to address his poem to an anonymous "you" so they all will think it's directed to them. The way the speaker criticized the people was to make people push for change. Langston starts the poem off by saying, “You and your whole race./ Look down upon the town in which you live/And be ashamed.” (Hughes ln. 1-3). Hughes says “you” in the opening sentence of the poem to indicate that what he’s going to say directed to you and everyone.

My people is one of Langston Hughes’ poems which is about working class black African American people. In this poem, he compared the beauty of nature to the beauty of his people. My people is a very short poem, built in three stanzas which consist of two lines in each stanza. This poem was written in simple language, therefore, the readers can easily understand what he is trying to convey. I believe, beneath its simple words, this poem depicts the beauty of working class black African American people that go beyond the beauty of physical appearance.

As time has passed humanity still tends to separate each other based on our racial being rather than seeing each other as one human race. Langston Hughes’s, “A New Song,” published in 1938 introduces the idea of a new vision of social relations in American society. Hughes’s original version of this poem written in 1933, does not encompass his growing anger on this subject that is dwelled upon in his published version. However, with Hughes’s powerful tone and word choice throughout his 1938 rendition, his reader is able to understand his urge to transform America into an interracial culture. (Central Idea) His poem voices the importance of transforming society into a multiethnic unity and working-class established through cultural ties between whites and blacks. (Thesis) Hughes voices this crucial need to change through his emphasis on African American’s past struggles as opposed to the new dream, his militant tone, and through expressing the role that the establishment of cultural ties plays in society.

Langston Hughes has made many accomplishments that most people couldn’t make. It was a great challenge for colored people to express their feelings without going through a lot of trouble. Hughes was successful in expressing he feelings. Considering the fact that he was half Caucasian and half African American, he wasn’t treated the way he was supposed to. So he wanted to do something about it and change the course of history.

Throughout my life I have experienced many trials that are quite different to that of the narrator in “Theme for English B”; however, there are some similarities such as his life experiences, that can be compared to those of the narrator. In this poem Langston Hughes writes of a man who is given an assignment with very abstract and philosophical instructions for writing this paper. Accordingly, the narrator has some difficulties at first because he thinks of how different he and the professor is, saying “It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what I feel and see and hear” (16-18). Consequently, the narrator realizes the difference between his life in Harlem and the life of his white professor. This causes the narrator to be skeptical of how the professor may receive the narrators’ interpretation of the assignment. Though the narrator and I share similar characteristics and experiences it is the differences that make the most impact throughout this paper. Three major differences are his teacher’s assignment, the colleges view of him, and his life in general. While Hughes does provide much background information on the narrator’s past, he gives multiple examples of his life a student and as a citizen living at the YMCA in Harlem.

Langston Hughes once said, “Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.” Poetry has had a profound impact on the society and culture of the American people, changing styles throughout the decades, but remaining steady in

In “Theme for English B” Langston Hughes dramatizes race and self-identity. Hughes is struggling to relate himself to his teacher and everyone around him, so he starts off by telling readers about his background such as his age and where he has lived. “I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston- Salem” (2). Through the first stanza of the poem we know that Hughes is living through a time where race is a big issue and not too many African American adolescents are in school like he is. He is learning more and more about himself by asking questions about the society he lives in and if and how he fits in it. He is trying to discover truths about his self-identity by comparing himself and his white teacher several times. “You are white- yet a

Lorraine Hansberry, the author of Raisin in the Sun, simulates the title of her play from the famous line in the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes, in which the poet asks, “What happens to a dream deferred?” A dream deferred is a vision that someone has, but due to certain circumstances, their fantasy life is either ignored or put on hold. For the Younger family, their dream of living as an ordinary middle-class black family and being accepted by the whites was deferred at one point. At the time the story took place, the blacks in the Chicago area still faced racism just like the south. The dream of the Younger family was very essential to each of them. They were willing to do literally anything to make their dreams come true.

One of the greatest questions in the American society is, “was America a dream for everyone?” It really depends on perspective. In Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing”, he claims that America was a dream for everyone. In Langston Hughes’s “Let America be America again”, he claims that America was not a dream for everyone. By reading these poems, people really start to think in depth about this question.

A “Theme for English B” is a poem written by Langston Hughes, in 1949 during the Harlem Renaissance. In his poem Langston Hughes was able to raise the question to anyone who was struggling to find his or hers identity, I was able to relate towards the poem because I too struggle with my identity and what my goals are in life. Hughes was also able to express that two people can learn from each other no matter their race or gender, by trying to relate to his instructor, who is white.

The most important idea I have learned about this semester has to be about segregation of the blacks. This topic struck my interest because have you ever thought about how it would be if they were still treated as poorly as they were during these times? Well the person that was in this chapter was Langston Hughes, which was a poet that wrote about the black community and what they struggled with in their everyday lives. He would even compare the lives of African Americans to the lives of the whites. During the times of his poems, slavery was over but the mistreating of the blacks wasn’t. Hughes talked about the dream the African Americans had and how the whites were putting it off. As this chapter continued, we learned about a man named Martin Luther King Jr. He was a man that always stuck to what he believed in and never gave into the thoughts of other people. He uses his “I Have a Dream” speech to show how he felt about this problem they were having. In this speech he repeats “I have a Dream” many times to let the reader know that this is his main goal for the black community. He wants the blacks to be free and have the freedoms the whites have on a daily basis. He says “I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as

In Langston Hughes essay “Salvation” he reveals how as a child he was plagued with the feeling of guilt and remorse when he had lied. Hughes was taught that lying was a sin but at the time he felt as though he was doing the right thing. In society people are taught to always be honest but there is a certain extent people go to because of the way they are supposed to conduct themselves in public. Although since children are more openly spoken and majority don't have the best manners overtime they are taught to what extent of honesty is acceptable. Situational ethics is not taught but in a way it's like common sense because being completely honest at times can come out as being rude depending on the situation. Hughes uses morals and children to reveal how easy it is for young to be pulled towards situational ethics.

Langston Hughes’s “Let America Be America Again” is a poem that could be endlessly applied to where America stands today. This poem illustrates the morals, ideas, and visions set forth by those who found this country and how America has begun straying from those principles. The poem expresses that America is made up of all walks of people and that no man should be crushed by those above him, but rather be given the same opportunity as those above him. Hughes desire to make America great again can be shared in some way or another by most Americans making this poem everlasting. “Let America Be America Again” has the personalization, the language, the connection shared by every American, and the rhyme to allow readers of every race, gender, or religious belief to be brought together as not only people but as Americans.

Poetry is a complicated yet beautiful artform. It allows for an individual to express their emotions and ideas by painting a picture using eloquent lines. Although alluring, poetry is also perplexing. It is almost impossible to fully understand what the author was exactly trying to get across in writing. There are however, multiple factors that can be used to help analyze poetry to get a better feel of that certain piece. In this paper, I will be analyzing Life Is Fine by Langston Hughes using irony, symbols, tone, rhyme, rhythm and meter.