Langston Hughes Essay

Langston Hughes’ Poems

Sorrow, pain, strength. There are a lot of emotions and attitudes involved in discrimination against black people during the Harlem renaissance. There are 3 poems written by Langston Hughes, that are going to be discussed in this essay. They have similarities as well as differences.

The poem “I, too” talks about the amazing courage that a young black man has to face discrimination.Firstly we learn that for the moment he is obliged to “eat in the kitchen when company comes” because he is black and people do accept to eat in the same room as him. But he knows that in a few years he will finally be able to eat with everyone, and they’ll be ashamed of how they mistreated him and see how beautiful he is. Secondly he doesn’t get discouraged by the discriminaton, on the contrary, he turns all the negativity into strength and hope, he says “ I will laugh,and eat well and grow strong”. Last of all the speaker also expresses that he too is America. Even though he is black, he stays America: “I, too sing America, I am the darker brother” . He is a part of America now that slavery is abolished, and will be the bravest part of america. This poem written in prose,expresses the fortitude of the speaker facing discrimination.

Another poem, “Harlem”, talks about broken dreams, unrealised dreams, dreams that have been deferred because of the lack of opportunity due to discrimination. What happens with those dreams? Do they “sag like a heavy load”, the dreams are so important that if they are ignored they will grow to sag. Or maybe, those dreams will haunt you with regret. Maybe the dreams are gonna be a sweet memory “like syrupy sweet”. In the last line of the poem, that is alone, the word “explode” generates a multitude of different feelings, like empowerment, fear or even pain. Those same feelings were the ones black people had when slavery was abolished, the felt empowered but at the same time, a lot of pain came with it because of discrimantion. The speaker is trying to encourage people to realise their dreams,to at least tentatively try, what he is trying to say is: ‘don’t stop fighting for it’. This poem written metaphorically with a few rhymes,tells us about the destiny of deferred dreams.

The last poem being discussed is “The Weary Blues”. “Weary Blues” tells the story of a dour black man, that plays Blues on Lenox Avenue, an avenue was a white-only avenue dedicated to entertainment by black artists, it was a very racist environment. The black musician is sad and extremely lonely: “Ain't got nobody in all this world”.The man is bereft of real emotional company. He is there all night entertaining these white men that had opulent lifestyles, but sings his sorrow as if he were alone in the room. He cant take it anymore, he wished that he had died “ I wish that I had died”. Like many musicians, he uses his music to relieve a bit of his sorrow, but he knows that tomorrow night, he is gonna have to do it all over again. In this poem there are two voices, the narrator and the man singing. The poem, written in rhymes, tells us the impact that discrimination can have upon a man.

All these poems written by Langston Hughes have similarities and differences. A big similarity between “I, too” and “Weary Blues” is that Langston Hughes tells

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