Langston Hughes Example Essay Example

his style. Harlem Night Club is unique in that it describes the integration of blacks and whites in an optimistic tone. The vigor and spirit of his youth is reflected in the energy of the writing, Jazz-band, jazz-band, / Play, plAY, PLAY! / Tomorrow....who knows? / Dance today! The repetition of the words, and the increasing emphasis on the word play bring out the excitement to the reader. More evidence of Hughess youth comes from the very focus of the poem: the interracial couples. The entire poem can be summed up as ...a single-glance tableau of interracial flirtation against a background of heady jazz. (Emanuel 120) This festive relationship between the two sexes can rarely be seen in any of Hughess later poems. At this point in his life, Hughes was enjoying the culture and excitement of the Harlem renaissance. It was an amazing period in New York for African Americans, the first real large scale expression of their culture. Jazz was a flourishing art form that Hughes often liked to write about. It is easy to see why most of his poems of this period (1921-1930) would be festive and cheerful. Unfortunately, the party didnt last into the next decade and the country fell into a deep depression. The period between 1931 and 1940 was a dark period for Hughes, and for African-Americans in general. On top of the financial difficulties the depression brought, widespread racism re-surfaced in the North. The celebration in Harlem was replaced by angry whites who were anxious to put blame on someone for their troubles. White Man is a direct attack on the white mans violations against the African-Americans.

Like the earlier poem Harlem Night Club, it is a fast-paced, dynamic piece. However, its tone reflects pure anger and frustration. White Man! White Man! / Let Louis Armstrong play it / And you copyright it / And make the money. / Youre the smart guy, White Man! / You got everything! Its intensity makes the reader frantic just from reading it. The line about Louis Armstrong refers to the great jazz trumpet player, the first black man to be recognized as a successful jazz artist by a white audience. Only now, ten years later, we see that it is the whites who profit from his talent. Hughes is desperate not to forget the accomplishments of the 20s, and not to let those accomplishments get taken away by greedy white businessmen. Another attack on the white world comes in his piece Ballad of Roosevelt. Roosevelt is thought of as one of the countrys greatest leaders, a wonderful humanitarian. But in this poem Hughes reminds us that he did not always come through with his promises. The poem is written in rhyme and has a flowing, nursery-rhyme feel. There is a chorus of three lines that repeats after every stanza. In each verse, Hughes states a problem such as lack of food, lack of medical attention, lack of money, etc.... And after each problem he says Im waitin on Roosevelt, son, / Roosevelt, Roosevelt, / Waitin on Roosevelt, son. The many impoverished black families in New York believed in the promises of Roosevelt and trusted that things would get better. But in Hughess poem, the family loses their house, cannot find a job, and is left

abandoned and hungry. It represents yet another case of whites letting blacks down. This poem shows the growing bitterness in Hughess life. Surely the piece is based on the many black families in Harlem that lost their houses, jobs and self-respect. Through his writing, he vented his anger. Third Degree is a cry against the corrupt justice system in the 1940s. The poem is a speech made by a black defendant, who is arguing to a white jury. The term third degree has a double meaning, referring to both the third degree murder sentence, and also third degree burns. The shame and anger that the defendant feels can be compared to the blistering pain of a third degree burn. He wont admit to a crime he did not commit. The comparison of shame to a painful burn is most apparent in the last stanza, When you throw / Cold water on me, / Ill sign the / Paper... Only if the white jury can end the burning shame he feels, will he admit to the crime he did not commit. Corrupt trials such as this were common in the South during this time. Hughes makes sure that the atrocities dont go unnoticed. For Hughes, it would appear that his life ended on a dejected note. Before his death in May of 1967, he wrote his final poem Flotsam. The title suggests that Hughes considers himself forgotten wreckage, and all his writing is wasted and forgotten. Its tone reeks of depression and self-pity, On the shoals of Nowhere, / Wasted my song / Yet taken by the sea wind / And blown along. Unfortunately, Hughes died

feeling as though his writing did not help his race, and that his legacy was to be forgotten. For his entire life he had been writing about racism, slavery, and inequality. And yet in this final poem, even after the civil rights movement had peaked, Hughes is left feeling worthless. The bitterness he faced during his lifetime built up to a dull apathy that appears in this piece. Despite the fact that Hughes is ...among the most eloquent American poets to have sung about the wounds caused by injustice (Rampersad 3), he thought his poems made no impact on society. On the contrary, Hughess poems had a tremendous influence on African-American society. Although scholars and critics throughout his career dismissed his poetry as too simple and unlearned, his primary audience, the black masses, and even Hughes himself viewed his work as folk poetry which was beneath criticism. (Rampersad 4-5) His poems, when studied as a collection over the span of his life, clearly show how the tone and emphasis in the writing reflect the mood of Hughes himself as he grew old. The universal theme of racism and race relations defined all the important work of Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes Danny Belinkie December 23, 1999 Period 2 Works Cited Emanuel, James. Langston Hughes. Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1967. Arnold Rampersad. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Vintage Classics, New York, 1994.