Langston Hughes' Theme and Versimilitude

What is one theme Langston Hughes creates? How does the verisimilitude foster the theme?

Langston Hughes focuses on the marginalization of blacks in order to create unity among the forgotten race. In "I, Too," Hughes states that he is the "darker brother," describing not only his nationality but also the unnoticed, racial discrimination in America. Furthermore, the poem centers on the idea of breaking the monarchy of whites; by envisioning--hoping that people will see blacks as a part of "America." Many blacks relate to this experience: their ancestors were kidnapped from their homeland and forced into a life of heartless orders and metal chains. In his other poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," Hughes mentions the major rivers of the world like the Euphrates, the Congo, and the Nile to show that black history is as ancient and rich as the "human blood in human veins;" their culture is crucial to America's past but a compete enigma to the naive Americans. Hughes' poems brought forth a debate many feared to argue. Titled the Poet Laureate of Harlem, Langston Hughes represented the wants--the yearnings--of black Americans, creating verisimilitude in his poems, whether it be through his first-person accounts of a Negro pianist making the "poor piano moan with melody" or recounting the command-obey relationship between a slave and his master. It is the "Weary Blues" or the singing "America" or the deep "rivers" that unite the scattered black sheep: the first stimulus to the inevitable Movement.

Great Gatsby Rhetorical Précis

In the great American novel The Great Gatsby (1925), F. Scott Fitzgerald claims that the lavish life brought by money is not as wonderful as it seems. Fitzgerald supports this by contrasting the characters' wealth with their completely unappealing personalities, by describing the unhappiness and annoyance between the characters, and by ending the novel in tragedy to exemplify that money does not bring true joy. The author's purpose is to inform the dangers of living excessively so that others do not fall into the trap of wealth. The author writes in a sarcastic tone for young Americans in the 1920s (and onwards).

F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the term "Jazz Age" for the 1920s to describe the wealth and carefree personality of that period, and this is obviously shown in The Great Gatsby and his other works of literature. His stories usually accentuate the wealth that his characters have like Gatsby's yellow car and Tom's stable full of top-notch horses. Another characteristic that Fitzgerald highlights is a human-being's imperfections, an example being Gatsby yearning for the past instead of accepting the present. Also, Fitzgerald crushes our joy and motivation--our dreams. Like in The Great Gatsby, like in "Winter Dreams," the characters (which represent people of the 1920s) are left dissatisfied in the end. Whether it be the failure to marry that girl or to achieve the American Dream, Fitzgerald brings us to reality that sometimes, dreams are not completely fulfilled and only wishes unanswered.

Larry Wu, You Are Right

After finishing The Great Gatsby, I realize that Larry Wu of our own class was right this whole time: "People are greedy." I want to think that we have goodness in all of us--to look out for others and live in harmony--but that is clearly not true in The Great Gatsby. 

First, who steals a married woman from her husband? I guess there is somewhat of a loophole there as Daisy is not happy with her marriage with Tom, but then I have to question why she does not get a divorce or why she picks Tom over Jay Gatsby in the end. She is just another money-grabbing woman, switching from man to man. She is greedy. 

And after Jay Gatsby is shot, no one comes to his funeral. Even though Nick earnestly tries his hardest to gather a respectable amount of people for Gatsby's final party, no one comes. After the constant parties that Gatsby held, or the numerous favors that he did for people, no one comes. Daisy does not come even though Gatsby committed his whole life to her. Also, Gatsby was going to take the fall for Daisy, but the bullet got to him first.

In a world driven by money, people are greedy. As Daisy denies Gatsby when he asks her to marry him because he is too poor, as Gatsby rises up in the social ladder but still gets rejected by Daisy, greed is the undeniable trait of human kind. Larry Wu, you are right.