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.
youre right before Hughes it was a lot of people silently suffering whos voices were not heard. However, Hughes publicized the struggles of the black man and was a catalyst for the liberation movement.
ReplyDeleteYour title is a very clever play on Langston's last name; however, I cannot find how it relates to your post as a whole. Very well written blog post on some very powerful poems by a very powerful man.
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