The Negro Speaks of Rivers Essay

challenge. In the four poems by Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, I, Too, Dream Variations, and Refuge in America, they all talk about equality and the freedom and liberty that everyone deserves. A big message in Langston Hughes poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, is the message of freedom. This poem talks and explains a lot about rivers, but thinking deep down it begins to focus on African Americans and their lack of freedom. A river flows easy and is free to do whatever. This is referring

Explication of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” The poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes hinges on the premise of one man having the collective experience of centuries of African and African American history. The Speaker reflects many of these experiences from freedom to slavery and as he reflects it becomes clear the experiences are not exclusively his but those of his ancestors. The poem begins by introducing its focus on rivers and we begin to see the formation of 3 ‘sections’

Symbolism in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes Symbolism embodies Hughes’ literary poem through his use of the river as a timeless symbol. A river can be portrayed by many as an everlasting symbol of perpetual and continual change and of the constancy of time and of life itself. People have equated rivers to the aspects of life - time, love, death, and every other indescribable quality which evokes human life. This analogy is because a river exemplifies characteristics that can be

Langston Hughes uses both Harlem and The Negro Speaks of Rivers to evoke responses from his readers. Both of these poems are profound in and of themselves when simply read given the political and racial tensions at the time, but when read and digested, they can speak to any race, creed, or color. The use of figurative language in both of these poems is what makes them so easy to identify with. He uses blood, deep rivers, rotten meat, and other nouns to allow the reader to process what each of his

many of Langston Hughes poem, in The Negro Speaks of Rivers, our souls need to grow deep like rivers, in I, Too, we are all Americans despite differences, in Dream Variations, people need to be accepting to others, Lastly in Refugee in America, we all want the same things. A message that can be interpreted from Langston Hughes poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers, is that our souls need to grow deep like rivers. A comparison that Hughes made was a soul to a river. Hughes says multiple times in the poem

very important messages in his four poems The Negro Speaks of Rivers, I, too, Dream Variations, and Refuge in America. Firstly, in Hughes’ The Negro Speaks of Rivers, the theme is about the heritage and historical identity of African Americans. In the last line, line 10, of the poem he says “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” Here he is saying that for centuries, black people have been here and they have souls, too, that are as deep as the rivers of the world. He is stating that white people

One part of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes that interests me is “I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins” (Lines 2-3). In this line there is a simile, metaphor, tone, and a universal truth. A simile is a comparison of one thing with another thing using like or as. In this line Hughes utilizes a simile by comparing accent rivers with the age of the world. I think Hughes compared the ancient rivers to the age of the

Messages (An Analysis of Messages From Langston Hughes’s Poems The Negro Speaks Of Rivers, I, Too, Dream Variation, and Refugee in America) “Writer James Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, and grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, mainly with his grandmother, Mary Langston, whose first husband had died in John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry and whose second, Hughes's grandfather, had also been a radical abolitionist.” (Rampersad). That would be Langston Hughes, one of if not the most influential

Renaissance to period of Martin Luther King in 1960. During Harlem Renaissance remarkable poems and plays were published by great authors which highlight a common theme. A very well known play “The Piano Lesson” by August Wilson and a poem “The Negro Speaks of the Rivers” by astonishing author Langston Hughes convey a common theme of legacy. These both pieces of writing imply how legacy connects and create a sense of unity among people. In the play “The Piano Lesson” the protagonist Berniece has a piano

1. In “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, the speaker joins himself to his ancestors, immovably setting them in essential historical, religious, and cultural locales everywhere throughout the world. The speaker starts by asserting a connection to the world's ancient rivers that originated before human creatures, and that has influenced his soul to develop profound like the rivers. This canny and eloquent portrayal shows the speaker's gigantic judgment, and enables him to make a complete connection between