Briana Urias English 3, Cordelia Ross Caged Bird vs. The Slave’s Dream In “Caged Bird” and “The Slave’s Dream”, each discusses the matters of what African Americans were deprived of and how they yearned for the rights that others had. Although both Maya Angelou and Henry Longfellow are approaching the same subject of oppression, each use their own colorful diction and well structure to effectively convey the different perspectives they hold on the topic. While one poem is struggling and grasping for the hope of finding their haven, the other discovers that it can be found simplest of places and no longer needs to hold on to that hope. Firstly, when the writing of the poems occurred, each poet took a different approach in the point of views of them.
Afrika uses his poem to illustrate the diverse conditions of two social cultures within his society (“but we know where we belong”). John Agard uses a unique structure. He uses the structure of his poem to add dramatic importance to what he says (“explain yuself, wha yu mean, when yu say half-caste”). The first and last stanzas are both three lined and isolated from the poem. This is added to emphasize his isolation in society.
3. “This did not mean that I loved black people; on the contrary, I despised them, possible because they failed to produce Rembrandt. I hated and feared the world. And this meant, not only that I thus gave the world an altogether murderous power over me, but also that in such a self-destroying limbo I could never hope to write” (448) James Baldwin had a more elegant taste for things, he wished that his fellow African Americans had created beautiful masterpieces like Rembrandt; He was dissatisfied with the world and the writings that were out there anxious and intimidated he felt he could never put his writing out there.
At the beginning of "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Hughes describes an encounter with "[o]ne of the most promising of the young Negro poets." Although he doesn't name the poet, it's generally accepted that he was referring to Countee Cullen. Do you think Hughes is being fair when he says that Cullen was trying to "run away spiritually from his race"? Why or why not? Do Cullen's poems suggest his desire to run away from his race?
Lola Whitlow ENG102-Composition II Critically Reading a Position Essay-Part 2 a. The vivid imagery in Douglass’s speech gave the listeners a clear picture of exactly what the slaves endured. It gave them the opportunity to imagine “walking in the shoes” of a slave. Douglass’s description of the slave trade and its impact on individuals and families appealed to the following values: independence which the slaves did not have; basic values of what is right, good, or desirable (again, none were granted to the slaves); hard work and achievement (which was done by the slaves but was acknowledgement for it was given to the slave owners). He was giving an explicit speech about changes that needed to be made by strongly voicing to the audience that slaves did not have any place in the value structure.
Even though Hughes is a black American he still has the courage to question America’s unfilled promises. Langston Hughes is able to give the readers of his poem a first hand account of a disingenuous America. Speaking from his personal experience Hughes makes it easy to see the injustices of this time. In this poem Hughes depicts America as a misleading place and a land of broken promises. America is portrayed as a land with a bright future that needs the people suffering from the injustices to fight for what they deserve.
The poem Theme for English B, by Langston Hughes, deals with a black students attempt to understand his identity. The simple statement let it "come out of you, then it will be true" on the part of the instructor reveals his inadequacy in understanding the complexities of black identity. Racial memories of the past coupled with the sense of dislocation do not allow him to have the same kind of freedom that the whites can have. In fact, Hughes shows not just this problematic notion of identity but also the disjunction that occurs when the black want to reach new levels of freedom and opportunity. There is a clear break between the lived world of the narrator, Harlem, and the university at the top of the hill, Columbia university, and the narrator as someone traversing both these spaces recognizes that he can't identify completely with either and at the same time cannot deny either.
Amiri Baraka, a fellow poet who was a friend of Frank O’Hara at the time, was black. It is intriguing to assess the influence Baraka had on O’Hara’s views. Allen Ginsberg shares the same views as O’Hara but writes in a very different way. I will be focusing on his revolutionary poem, “Howl” and the way in which he discusses race as well as how racial minorities are treated in America. To analyse “Howl” fully, I will bring in details from his poem “America” to support my points.
Compare how places are presented in the poems Nothing’s Changed and What Were They Like? I am going to compare how places are presented in the poems Nothing’s Changed and What were they Like. These two poems are both writing about very similar places; places that had suffered oppression, racism and death. Nothing’s Changed is written about South Africa soon after the apartheid was lifted. The country had been in a state of segregation for a decade and as a result there had been riots and civil unrest among the blacks and fierce oppression by the whites, this was a place very like a warzone, which leads into the second poem What were they Like?
The Negro Speaks of Rivers is a great poem that references the history of African Americans from slavery to freedom. In this poem Langston Hughes does a great job of underlying the message to the reader. He hides the meaning of the poem in rivers and human veins. But through these images and details, it becomes clear to the reader how to understand the themes of the poem. This poem is important to readers because it gives insight to how African Americans first started off as slaves and then later triumphed and became free.