Comparison of Allen Ginsbergs `America and Langston Hughes `I, Too` Essay Example

desirable end for it  had many privileges like if he is America he does not need to eat in the kitchen anymore but would “eat at the table”.

Moreover, the two poems reveal the relationship of the two authors with regards to the personal America. In the first poem, the author is already living America, that is, he already recognize that he is the embodiment of an American.

As an America he describe  the kind of life that he is living like    he felt that  “Asia is rising against me”   or that “ he does not want to  join  the Army”  or he does not want to “turn lathes in precision parts in factories”  or that he “read  the magazine every week”.

When the author says that “Asia is rising against me” he means that as an American he is constantly faced with oppositions from all sides, or that when “he had to join the army” it means that he had many obligations, or that when says that “he turn lathes in precision parts in factories” it means that he had to work everyday or that when he had to “read the newspaper every week” it means that media had played an essential part of his life.

Meanwhile while the author in the first poem is already living America ( and resenting some  aspects of it ) , in the second poem    the author desires to be recognized that he too is America   for  while he is living in America, he does not enjoy the privileges or freedom of living as  an American.

The two poems also explore the social

problems of America when the authors wrote the poem. There is the communist America and the discriminated America. In the first poem, Ginsberg reveals that there are some Americans who sympathize with the communists while Hughes reveals that many black Americans are suffering from discrimination.

This two problem needs to be address for its tears apart the very core of America itself. Communists Americans and discriminated black Americans can be describe as two American social outcasts that are crying to be heard and assert itself in the American society.

As a conclusion, although both poems of Ginsberg and Hughes cover the theme of America as a personal being and not as a country it nevertheless explores opposing attitudes to being an American. Ginsberg portrays the state of being an American as overwhelming and at times resentful while Hughes claimed that black Americans desired the freedom and privileges of living as an American.

Works Cited

1. Ginsberg, Allen. "America". Hoover, Paul. Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology. New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1994: (130, 136-137, 635-637).
2. Hughes, Langston. “I, too”. The Poetry Archive. 2005. Accessed May 12, 2008. <http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1552>