What Is the State of America in in Let America Be America Again
'Let America Be America Again' was written in 1935 and originally published a twelvemonth later in Esquire Mag. And so afterward in A New Song, a pocket-sized collection of poems. The poem was written while Hughes was traveling from New York to see his mother in Ohio. Due to recent personal events, reviews, and the health of his mother, he turned to writing as an outlet to express some of his deeper thoughts well-nigh what it was truly like to live in America. This poem explores the themes of identity, freedom, and equality. It is just as applicable to today's world as it was in the mid-thirties. Readers today will find several entry points into Hughes' feel of the American Dream.
Summary of Allow America Be America Once more
'Allow America Exist America Again' past Langston Hughes is focused on the American Dream, what information technology means, and how it is impossible to capture.
The verse form takes the reader through the perspective of those who have been put-upon by a system that is supposed to help them. They are the poor, the immigrants, the African Americans, and the Native Americans. They are any who have sought the American Dream and found it to be nonexistent, at to the lowest degree for them.
Through the text, Hughes outlines what it would mean to really take the America that people say exists. It will crave taking the country back from the "leeches" who feed on the poor and truly achieving freedom.
Yous tin can read the total verse form here.
Construction of Let America Exist America Again
'Let America Be America Once more' by Langston Hughes is an eighty-6 line poem that is divided up into seventeen stanzas of varying lengths. The shortest stanzas are only ane line long and the longest stretches to twelve. Usually, the poem is quite interesting. The stanzas are inconsistent, some of the lines are in parenthesis and some in italics.
At that place is not a single rhyme scheme that unites the unabridged poem, but there are patterns for stanzas and for sections. For case, the kickoff 3 quatrains, 4-line stanzas, more often than not rhyme ABAB. As the poem progresses though the rhyme scheme is less consistent. In that location are several examples of half-rhyme equally well.
Half-rhyme, as well known as slant or fractional rhyme, is seen through the repetition of assonance or consonance. This ways that either a vowel or consonant sound is reused within one line or multiple lines of verse. For case, "soil" and "all" in lines thirty-one and thirty-three.
Poetic Techniques in Let America Be America Once more
Hughes makes employ of several poetic techniques in 'Let America Be America Over again'. These include but are not limited to anaphora, enjambment, alliteration, and metaphor. The beginning, anaphora, is the repetition of a give-and-take or phrase at the showtime of multiple lines, usually in succession. This technique is often used to create accent. A list of phrases, items, or deportment may be created through its implementation. This technique is used frequently throughout the poem. For case, "Let it exist" at the beginning of lines 2 and three, besides as "I am the" which starts a total of 10 lines.
Alliteration occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear close together, and brainstorm with the aforementioned sound. For case, "dream the dreamers dreamed" in line six.
Another important technique ordinarily used in poetry is enjambment. It occurs when a line is cut off before its natural stopping signal. Enjambment forces a reader down to the side by side line, and the next, quickly. One has to motility forward in order to comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. At that place are several examples in this poem, including the transitions between lines eleven and twelve, likewise every bit 20-six and xx-seven.
A metaphor is a comparing between two unlike things that does not employ "like" or "every bit" is besides nowadays in the text. When using this technique a poet is maxim that one matter is another thing, they aren't just similar. For example, a reader can look to lines twenty-six and twenty-seven which read "Tangled in that ancient endless chain / Of profit, power, gain, of catch the land!"
Analysis of Let America Be America Over again
Lines one-5
Let America be America again.
Permit information technology be the dream it used to be.
(…)
(America never was America to me.)
In the first stanza of 'Let America Exist America Again,' the speaker begins by making use of the line that later came to be used equally the title. He is asking that things go back to the way they used to be, at least in everyone'due south listen. There was, some indeterminately long time ago, the feeling that anything was possible in America. There was the freedom of the "obviously" and the ability to seek a home for oneself. Only, that dream is changing. It is non what information technology "used to be".
This get-go quatrain is followed past a unmarried line "(America never was America to me). To Hughes, living as a blackness homo in America, things were always different.
Lines 6-10
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Permit information technology be that great strong land of dearest
(…)
(It never was America to me.)
The second quatrain reemphasizes what for some was a real, tangible dream they could strive for. The discussion "dream" is repeated several times throughout these commencement stanzas, emphasizing the fact that that is what information technology is—a dream. The poet asks that the "peachy strong land of beloved" render. Information technology is, in this clarification, an platonic place where tyranny has no foothold. Never, in this idealized version, was a man crushed by one above him.
Only, equally a contemporary reader should understand, this is only fiction. That is not the America that exists today, nor did it ever exist. Hughes makes this clear in the follow up of a single line, once more in parenthesis, which says "Information technology never was America to me". He knows his own experience and is not going to ignore information technology.
Lines xi-16
O, permit my country be a land where Freedom
Is crowned with no fake patriotic wreath,
(…)
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
The tertiary quatrain follows the same ABAB rhyme scheme as the previous two. A two-line stanza, in parenthesis, follows. He dives back into this over the height, idealized paradigm of America. It is, in the stories, songs, and movies, a "land where Freedom / Is crowned with no simulated patriotic wreath". Everything is perfect there and each person can attain success and happiness. The "opportunity is real" and "life is free". The word "free" is key here.
The ii that follow, which provide the reader with insight into the speaker'due south existent thoughts about America, describe something unlike. He has not experienced that universal "quality" that America is supposedly known for. It is not the "'homeland of the free"' for him.
Lines 17-24
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are yous that draws your veil beyond the stars?
(…)
And finding simply the same old stupid plan
Of domestic dog consume dog, of mighty crush the weak.
The blueprint that had been developing in the previous stanzas of 'Let America Exist America Again' dissolves when another two-line stanza follows. Lines seventeen and eighteen are in italics. This was i in gild to describe increased attention to them as a turning point in the poem. Things are well-nigh to change in how the speaker talks about America.
These lines enquire ii questions. They are directed at the previous statements that came in parenthesis. The speaker'southward negativity is questioned. These lines suggest that the speaker is trying to practice something evil. In his free speech, he is trying to disrupt the normal way people see the earth.
The post-obit six lines provide the vocalism with the offset part of an answer. The speaker responds by saying that he is not just one person, but many. He is the nerveless mind of those that take not been able to get in touch with the American dream. He is the "poor white" that has been "fooled" and taken advantage of by those richer than he. The speaker is also the "Negro bearing slavery's scars" and the "red man," a reference to Native Americans, who were "driven from the state". These, as well as immigrant children, are outlined in this start stanza of response.
He has found null in the globe to make him believe in the American dream. There is simply the "same quondam stupid plan / Of dog eat dog" and the strong destroying those below them.
Lines 25-30
I am the young man, full of forcefulness and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
(…)
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for 1'due south own greed!
The next six lines of 'Let America Exist America Again' provide boosted lines in response to the question. He is representing the "young man" who began total of promise and is at present stuck in the spider web of capitalism and the "domestic dog eat dog" world.
Hughes uses anaphora in these lines to emphasize what information technology takes to movement through the world while seeking success. One has to grab "profit, power". They have to "grab the gold" and "grab the ways of satisfying demand". It is have, take, accept.
Lines 31-38
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
(…)
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
The side by side four lines of 'Permit America Be America Over again' also use anaphora in the repetition of "I am" at the beginning of the lines. He explains that he also represents the farmer, worker, Negro, and "people, humble, hungry, mean". The use of alliteration in this line makes the stanza overall feel more rhythmic. One should bounce from give-and-take to word while taking in Hughes'southward meaning.
He is everyone that has been pushed downwardly and locked out of the American Dream as he outlined it in the first few stanzas. That dream does non exist for him. He refers to them as men and women who "never got ahead". He is the "poorest worker bartered" by employers, "through the years".
Lines 39-50
Notwithstanding I'm the one who dreamt our bones dream
In the Former Globe while still a serf of kings,
(…)
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The next stanza of 'Let American Be America Again' is the longest of the verse form with twelve lines. It speaks on the history of those who have come to America in search of that dream only have been unable to detect information technology. He "dreamt our bones dream" while still in the "One-time World" where dreams such every bit that felt impossible. He relates the immigrants who first came to America, and the dream they were seeking, to its nonexistence today. They wanted something stiff, dauntless, and truthful but that does not be now.
He casts himself as "the man who staled those early seas" looking for a new home. He is the Irishman, the Pole, the Englishman, he is the African "torn from Blackness Africa's strand". All are in America now wanting to build a life.
Lines 51-61
The gratuitous?
Who said the free? Non me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
(…)
The millions who accept nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that'southward most dead today.
The word "free" is in question in the following line. It stands by itself, a two-word line. "The free?" Information technology draws the reader's attention in an acute and precise way.
He follows this up with a series of questions asking who would even say the word "free?" The millions who are "shot down when we strike?" Or those who "take nothing for our pay?" There is no "free" to speak of.
All that's left for any of those people that Hughes has mentioned is the sliver of the dream that'south "almost dead today".
Lines 62-69
O, let America be America again—
The country that never has been yet—
(…)
Whose mitt at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring dorsum our mighty dream once again.
The opening line of 'Let America Be America Again' is repeated at the beginning of this stanza. Here, he explores what America is really like and what he would like information technology to be. He speaks of himself, "ME" and all those who "made America" what it is. Those who should do good almost are as well those who gave their "sweat and claret". America is built on "organized religion and hurting" and it is those who have given the most who should benefit. He hopes that the dream will render to them, someday.
Lines seventy-79
Certain, call me whatever ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does non stain.
(…)
O, yes,
I say it evidently,
America never was America to me,
(…)
The seventieth line of 'Let America Be America Again' admits that many are going to push button back against the speaker. He will exist called "ugly proper name[s]" but nothing is going to finish him from pursuing the freedom he wants. It is a brave and honorable affair to pursue liberty and he won't be knocked down by the "leeches". These are the men and women who take advantage of the hard-working people mentioned in the previous stanzas. He speaks rousingly to the masses, "We must take back our country once again" and make it the America it was meant to be.
It might not have been America to this speaker before, or right now, but through these lines, he establishes a goal to brand information technology the America he wants.
Lines 80-86
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster expiry,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
(…)
All, all the stretch of these peachy greenish states—
And brand America again!
In the last lines of 'Let America Be America Over again' the speaker explains that from the night, "rape and rot of graft, and steal, and lies" in that location volition come something bright and good. The people are going to be redeemed and free. The vastness of the country will resemble the vastness and freedom of the people. Those put upon and forgotten volition renew the world.
Source: https://poemanalysis.com/langston-hughes/let-america-be-america-again/
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