Comparing Illustrations of Racism Essay Example

his father to the resurrection of Christ, Martin Espada have, in a way, presented the idea that there will always come a time of realization when people will be able to comprehend the veracity of life and will come to make decisions that will turn the crooked traditional ways straight again.

On the other hand, Paul Laurence Dunbar had illustrated, through his writing “Sympathy,” the effects caused by racism in one’s own self. With the constant pattern of a-b-c-c-b-c-c, the poem had showcased, with opulence and sad complexity, the feeling of deep anguish and commiseration that a person experience due to racial discrimination. The author, Dunbar, have never actually agreed that the persona symbolized by the caged bird was him. Yet, for reasons that are as clear as a stain in a crystal glass, the poem and the caged bird have strongly represented him.

The bird embodies Dunbar himself and the cage signifies the racial discrimination he had faced through his time. The poem, through its tricky words, generally narrates the discrimination the author, as well as other people like him during that time, endured and the difficulties it have brought. It had not been easy for those differentiated, more often than not blacks at that time, to acquire a job that is meaningful or of significance. Their hardships were evident through the lines “And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars… And they pulse again with a keener sting. Through the spontaneous melancholy expressed in the poem and the constant struggle of the bird in its cage, singing glumly with its heart and flapping its wings until it dyes the cage’s bar with its

blood, it showed how racism could imprison a person’s soul. While both Espada and Dunbar have written their poems extravagantly through narration, Langston Hughes have evoked feelings in his poem “Harlem” through profound weary questions. People who would read this poem of his for the first time would have a hard time figuring out what he means.

The poem, with the pattern a, b-c-d-c-e-f-e-g-h, h, is beckoning and simple. The words are not that deep yet the meaning it held was intense. On a shallow point, one would understand that the author is talking about the destiny of a dream that was put back. But in a deeper sense, one would be able to comprehend that the author, Langston Hughes, was talking about not just any dream but the general achievement of blacks of the so-called American Dream—the freedom that let United States’ people to earn their rewards and attain their ambitions in life, especially having material wealth and prosperity.

It is worth noting that the title of the poem, “Harlem,” not only stands for the black dominated community at the north eastern part of Manhattan but also the art and literature movement of African-Americans during the author’s time. As we can see, through the portrayal of the three authors aforementioned, racism or racial discrimination could not only be seen through a community level of interaction but it could also be found in a personal and national level.

But while we may think that being discriminated is a downside for someone, it should be observed that it could actually bring to the open the best one could find in a person. And through the varied ways that people

find to express the discrimination they feel or have felt, they have actually proposed a movement for change; to change the wrong common practice and perhaps improve the present condition of people. It is indeed like what the great artist Andy Warhol have said, “They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. ”