Introduction
In his five-decade writing career, Langston Hughes produced various works, including books, newspaper articles, dramas, poems, and nonfiction books (Colvett, 2016). He is now regarded as among the most significant authors in the American history. One of the main subjects in Langston Hughes’ poetic works is race and cultural identity. It is crucial to note that a significant portion of his poems examines many facets of African American identity with respect to race and culture in general, as well as complex issues of social unfairness. This article will primarily concentrate on three of his poems: “As I grow older,” “The Negro mother,” and “I, Too Sing America”, which each addresses the core issues of racial identification, Black cultural identity, the cost of racial desegregation, and American identity. One of the author’s best-known achievements is his role in fusing African American and American cultures together. As a result, his poetic styles and themes frequently focus on the racial and cultural identity of Black people in America.
Analysis of “As I grew older.”
The poem’s opening stanza starts with the speaker reflecting on their past and recalling how they once had a “dream,” which they described as being “like a sign” ahead of them. It stood for a bright future and contentment in general in the speaker’s day-to-day existence. However, a figurative barrier that represents his goal progressively grows in front of the speaker. He could not fulfil his life’s ambitions because of this barrier, which stands in for the racial segregation practices of Langston Hughes’s day. He briefly forgot about his dreams because of how sturdy and high the wall was. His “Black hands,” which he refers to throughout the poem, are addressed by the speaker in an effort to motivate himself to scale the barrier and realize his aspirations (Pamungkas, 2018). He thinks he can penetrate this figurative barrier and turn it into “a thousand lights of the sun” and “a thousand spinning dreams”. The message of Langston Hughes’ poem “As I Grew Older” is that for a Black person trying to pursue a vision in the United States in the early to mid-1900s, racially discriminatory laws, attitudes, and behaviours got in the way. The speaker decides to overcome the “wall” at the expense of pursuing his aspirations again halfway through the poem. He affirms that for Minority people to emerge from the background, they must utilize their own personal strength and force. The real-life, everyday experiences that Langston Hughes had as a black man in New York in the early 1900s served as likely inspiration for this poem. He probably penned the five stanzas of this poem from his personal point of view. Alternatively, he was probably motivated by the stories of the men and women he knew who had their goals crushed by prejudice and anti-black laws.
Analysis of “The Negroe Mother”
The poem’s title, The Negro Mother, alone invokes feelings in anyone who has even a passing familiarity with American history. Enslaved African Americans endured the harshest treatment documented to have occurred on American soil. Despite being written by a guy named Langston Hughes, The Negro Mother is told from the perspective of a lady who was a formerly enslaved person. She speaks to her kids, encouraging them to fight for justice and liberty and continue where she left off (Primaditra, 2017). Her words convey the picture of a powerful, enthusiastic black woman who has endured violence and mistreatment but has overcome it with a love in her heart and a song on her tongue. She wants all American black children to heed these remarks. This was a special moment in history. Despite being set free for more than 60 years, the enslaved Blacks continued to live apart from white society. The mother in “The Negro Mother” speaks with firsthand knowledge of enslavement. During the Harlem Renaissance, many elderly Black people who had previously been enslaved could watch their children and grandchildren succeed as authors, singers, and performers, among many other professions. Unfortunately, there was racial segregation, and members of white society frequently refused to recognize the achievements and skills of their black counterparts. Thus, The Negro Mother was published during the extremely rare time when the Blacks who had personally experienced slavery and those who had not coexisted with it did so. The poem tells the story of a mother who experienced slavery and instructs her free children never to quit but to continue moving toward democracy and excellence; it is a particularly fitting book for the era.
Analysis of “I Too, Sing America”
I, Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes is a deeply personal poem he composed during the Harlem Renaissance. Due to his skin tone, he considered himself as an unremembered American citizen, which is how the poem conveys that (Sharma, 2017). Although he is continuously being ignored and hidden away by the dominant people of the community because he is African American, Hughes declares in the brief poem that he is also an American despite his skin colour. Hughes still sings like an American, despite the fact that he feels excluded because of his colour. This poem is another example of how Hughes used poetry to protest the racial discrimination surrounding Black people. Despite its briefness, it conveys a strong point about how it feels like to be Black and live in America, particularly during his era when racism was at its top. He sings America, too. He calls himself “the darker brother,” and although the white majority consistently keeps him concealed, preventing him from being viewed as an equal among men in his country, he is still a significant and essential component of America. Although racial discrimination is the poem’s theme, the poet and narrator remain optimistic that one day soon, those in positions of power will feel embarrassed of how they mistreated the Blacks and realize that they are an integral part of the nation.
Summary and comparison between the poems
It is obvious from the analysis of these three poems that have been presented and clarified that Langston Hughes focused on the various forms of racial prejudice against Blacks in America. The racial prejudice depicted in the poems above is tied to physical attributes with the presumption that Blacks are less intelligent, violent, and vicious than whites, and that Blacks are unequal to them. Black people are discriminated against due to the unfairness, inequity, and arbitrary actions taken by the whites, which in this instance (Arafah et al., 2022). People of colour are treated differently by white people, who also have racial prejudices against Blacks. Because of this, white people still frequently perceive the Blacks as descendants of their previous slaves. Instead of judging black people by their deeds, white people focus on their skin colour.
Finally, it should be noted that the main concerns of Langston Hughes’ poems are race and ethnic identity. The core themes in the above-analyzed poems are around race, Black cultural identity, the cost of social injustice, and American identity. The poet’s main contention appears to centre on the idea that Black culture and identity are essential to the existence of American culture and identity, making people of colour, by extension, intrinsically Americans.
References
Arafah, B., & Pattu, A. (2022). Racial Discrimination Experienced by Black People as Reflected in Langston Hughes’s Poems. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 13(2), 350-356.
Colvett, M. (2016). The public poet sings himself: the life and work of Welborn Victor Jenkins (Doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia).
Pamungkas, B. (2018). Prejudice and Racial Discrimination as Reflected in Langston Hughes’“As I Grew Older” (Doctoral dissertation, Diponegoro University).
Primaditra, A. R. (2017). The Hidden Transcript in “The Negro Mother”, A Poem by Langston Hughes (Doctoral dissertation, Diponegoro University).
Sharma, A. K. (2017). Racial discrimination and protest in the poetry of Langston Hughes: A critical analysis. The Achievers Journal: Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture, 3(2).
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