My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of the earth. (Abraham Lincoln) In the poem "Let America Be America Again," Langston Hughes paints an affecting and diverse stanza, displaying peaceful passages to angry outbursts. His resonance seems confessional, as he is speaking about his own exposure and communicating for all the unheard Americans. Hughes addresses how America considers to be, has shifted to them to think, and could pursue to be again. In the beginning of the poem, Langston Hughes converses about what the American Dream is to him and who believed it. Let it be the dream it used to be (2) The American Dream was noted to be, the land where you obtained complete peace and equality
The speaker in the poem says, “Tangled in that ancient endless chain/of profit, power, gain of grab the land!” (lines 26-27). Hughes used a metaphor in these lines to describe how living in America was like an endless cycle and that he felt trapped and he wanted to feel equal to everyone else. The speaker uses this repetitive phrase, “Let America be America again,” (line 1). They use it again later on in the poem,
“Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes is a powerful poem that points out all of the struggles minority groups and lower-class people go through. Hughes believes that the American system is corrupted and unfair. He thinks that the businessmen are greedy, taking from the poor and giving to the wealthy. The American idea is something that is not real for many people because of their race, economic situation, and come up.
Harlem Renaissance Essay First Draft The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural awakening, the reborn and rise of the intellectuals and great artists that were people of color. Such artists includes Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and Zora Neale Hurston. These young writers were able to express their feelings that they have felt while living in America at the time. The most popular writer of the movement was Langston Hughes.
In the poem "Let America Be America Again," Langston Hughes paints a vivid word picture of a depressed America in the 1930's. In this poetic expression, a speaker is allowed to say what he wants for America to be America, what is that we don't have that high gas prices. I think that I would change, that people who aren't working should not get any money from the state, freedom is a privilege instead of the state giving it for free. My brother is epileptic and he works so how come everybody in the world wants something for free. I learned over two years that everything is the same in Germany as in America sure we speak different we have different opinions about something, but we are still the person who we want to be is our decision about how we want to live our lives.
Langston Hughes was a pioneer of contemporary African American literature. His work, Montage of a Dream Deferred, is comprised of several poems which read as one, centered mainly on the African American community in post World War II Harlem. The overarching motif is of the dream deferred, which was Hughes’ way of responding to racial oppression in America. The dream deferred refers to how there is the American dream, which exists for white Americans, and the dream deferred reflects on how the ideals of the American dream do not always include all people, like African Americans, Jewish people, and any person who has heard “the music of a dream deferred” (Hughes, p.425).
What it means to be an American Langston Hughes' poetry is a powerful reflection of the African American experience, providing a voice to the marginalized and inspiring a generation to dream big and demand equality. While the ideals of freedom, opportunity, and diversity are often associated with American identity, Hughes' work highlights the reality that these ideals are not always fully realized for all members of society. For Hughes, being an American meant actively fighting for oneself and one's community, and striving towards a truly equal and just society, rather than simply accepting the status quo. His work serves as a reminder that the American experience is not a fixed or static concept, but one that is constantly evolving and
In “I hear America singing” by Langston Hughes we see the American dream depicted as the American Dream for Blacks in a time of segregation and
Jazz music filled the streets, people poured into speakeasies, the economy boomed and American spirits were high during the roaring twenties. The Harlem Renaissance played an essential part in making this decade a notable time. Due to the great migration caused by Jim Crow laws, Boll Weevils and industrial jobs available in the North, African Americans finally left their lives of endless debt and farming for a new opportunities in the North. Harlem allowed the opportunity for a new African American culture to be represented. This new culture allowed for African Americans to be able to achieve new dreams.
America is well known as the land of the free and the home opportunity. Although it is said everyone is equal in every way, that has not always been the case. Langston Hughes is a poet who tried to emphasize the idea of equality among all human beings. Hughes underlined the basis of the American Dream with what is and what should be in the societal era he lived in. In hindsight he believed his poems helped others realize the injustices that all minorities had to face during this era.
At this time, the dream was equality and being accepted as citizens of the United States. Hughes felt that this goal of liberty and quality for African Americans was very hard to reach or match. A poem that resembles this thought well is titled “Youth”, where Hughes writes, “We have tomorrow… Bright before us… Like a flame” (Hughes 39). This poem has a lot of analysis towards the American Dream.
The second speaker also reshapes the first two lines of the entire poem into a plea to the majority. Beforehand, the first speaker uses those lines as a call for the old American spirit to be revived: “Let America be America again / Let it be the dream it used to be” (1-2). Both speakers change the meaning of the lines to express their thoughts on America. As a result, the poem expresses the desire for everyone to be treated equally in the land of freedom. The readers can relate to the speaker because they wish that everyone has equal rights in the country that proclaims itself to be the symbol of freedom.
Has the dream changed? What really is the the dream place the so call america? The way this text could be read and / or interpreted differently by two different types of readers is if one of the readers who agrees with the statement that Langston Hughes is arguing about in his poem. The second reader would be the one person who disagree with his statement because she or he has a different perspective of what Langston Hughes poem is saying and states that america has always been and had their freedom and equality to a certain extent.
A stimulating and rousing ideal, the American Dream is a symbol of America’s promise and the possibilities within her borders. Compelling far-off foreigners to cross the dark and blue oceans decades ago, the American Dream has become an enthralling controversy for films, plays and books to exhibit and question. A famous example of the exploration of the American Dream lies in two beautifully written poems by two critically acclaimed poets, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. Hughes’ “Let America be America Again” and Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” are fascinating poems by legendary poets.
Apart from the issue of inequality, the main theme of “Let America be America Again” is the confrontation with the American Dream. Hughes himself was not entirely sure if there ever was such a dream or what the dream really meant and continuously changes his own mind throughout the poem. First of, to answer this questions there must be a clear definition of the American Dream, but the issue about dreams is that they are different for every single human. The American dream might mean something completely different
His metaphor puts a final image to the struggle of oppression during the Civil Rights Movement and what happens to a black man or woman when a dream is deferred. Hughes wants his readers to not only imagine but feel how African Americans felt during the Civil Rights Movement when he wrote this poem. He wanted to convey the pain, anguish, disrespect, and ultimately, the conclusion of what may happen to a dream that continues to be deferred. What would happen to a dream deferred?