This piece really inspired me and made a lot of sense. While this piece is a bit older a lot of the main ideas still apply to today. I think it is important tp talk about this artist, this piece and the power behind it.
Is America the land of equality and freedom? Is it the land we make it out to be? In the poem, “Let America be America Again” by Langston Hughes, it seems it’s not.
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Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902. He grew up with his grandma until he was 13 when he moved in with his mother. He went to Columbia University in New York until 1924 when he moved to Washington D.C where he wrote his first book of poetry called the Weary Blues, he also wrote his first novel, Not Without Laughter in the year 1930. He wrote novels, short stories poetry, and plays.
In 1935 he wrote the poem, “Let America be America Again”. The poem outline the American dream that was never fulfilled for lower-class citizens and different minorities. He wrote this when his work still wasn’t extremely popular or very profitable. He was struggling with his mother’s diagnosis of breast cancer and the racial inequality he was facing. In this poem, he uses repetition, rhyming, feeling words, and the honesty of what he thinks to strengthen his point that America is not what we say it is and is far from the dream we have for it.
In this poem, he constantly uses the words dream and free/freedom. This adds to the message that the America we long for is just a dream and is not the world we wish to live in today. The poem is referring to the American dream that is difficult for minorities and the lower class to reach. Using the word dream constantly seems to refer to his feelings about society in how we all come here for the dream but instead live the nightmare. The only way for you to have the American dream is to have wealth and to be greedy. This is shown in stanza 8 when he states, “I am the young man, full of strength and hope…profit, power, gain and grab of the land!… Of owning everything for one’s own greed.”. These lines signify the wealth, greed, and selfishness of the powerful people in this society.
Be, free, me. Liberty, free, breathe. Need, greed. Pain, rain, again. These are just some examples of rhyming through this poem. These words that are rhyming are very important to his message and tie the poem together. Free, liberty. Ties to freedom and the need for it. Need, greed. The selfishness and greediness that corrupts the world is ringing in these words. Pain, rain. Upset and hurt that is traveling in all shapes and sizes, whether it’s money or hunger. The world is being swallowed whole by the pain that is swarming around us all. Overall these words alone convey a powerful message, and all refer to what we are struggling with in the world and what we’re lacking.
Feeling words, such as rain, pain, free, and rot. They all stir up different emotions and signify the emotion he wants to convey. In the last stanza(Stanza 16) he uses words such as, rape, rot, stealth, plain, and so forth to convey the emotion he wants you to feel. This disgusted tone is carried in through these words. Or in stanza 8 when he uses the words, strength, power, gain, grab, and take, to convey the message of greed or a rather selfish tone. Another example could be stanza 7 when he uses the words, fooled, poor, scars, clutching, crush, old, and weak to arouse empathy in the reader and push the idea of suffering and pain in the lower class and minorities. These words overall add to the emotional side of the poem and cause you to feel differently towards different people.
In “Let America be America Again” Langston Hughes speaks his mind and is straightforward about what he thinks about different groups and how he sees them through his eyes. He is not holding back from calling people leeches(Stanza 14) or greedy(Stanza 8). He is not holding back about the flaws of America and how it is not the dream we say it is. This is bold and rather inspiring. It shows how passionate he is and true these words are to him. The honesty adds to the appeal and makes you think about the prospect of the world he wants and what he thinks we are lacking.
“Let America be America Again” is a powerful poem that is honest and conveys a message that not everyone wants to hear but some people need to hear. He used repetition, feeling words, rhyming, and honesty to make his point and shove the emotions and feeling in your face and show how he truly feels about this subject. The American dream is from form our reach and this poem proves how the wealthy people in this world have it easier than the lower class and minority groups. This poem was very strong and shows the true meaning of America and how we are far from perfect and are not making way for the American dream.