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America By Claude Mckay Analysis

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The speaker of Claude McKay’s poem “America,” explains how it is crucial to stay positive and believe in what America stands for, a place for hope, even though America contains many evils as it addresses those who are suffering. The speaker is an African American who may be struggling, but decides to remain optimistic in what America represents. The speaker is African American for it alludes to the abstract version of someone who is like Claude McKay, which is shown through the use of words such as “me,” (1) (6) “my,” (2) (3) (5) (7) and “I.” (3) (4) (9) (11) This speaker tries to elucidate to the audience of other suffering Americans that the inspiration that she gives is worthwhile in the long run. This “she” (1) that the narrator discusses, …show more content…

Typically a sonnet is a 14-line love poem with 10 syllables per line. “America” because of this is a composition mostly for the speaker’s love of what America stands for. This connects to the message of the poem that the narrator has a love-hate relationship with America. The relationship is represented for the duration of the sonnet through the use of phrases such as “feeds me bread of bitterness” (1) and “like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.” (14) These lines give a glimpse of how the sonnet gives off contradictory statements that show the speaker’s indecisiveness of how he feels about America. The rhyme scheme of the poem also adds to the overall message. The ABABCDCDEFEFGG pattern creates an intertwining feel for the poem as the rhymes are casually repeated. The intertwined rhymes allow the same sounds to be repeated while they are still mixed in with other words. In turn, a unity is created throughout the chaos of the poem. The rhymes bring opposing ideas together for one central poem. This can be shown in the lines “and sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth” (2) and “I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!” (4) These two lines have opposite idea of good and darkness, but they are brought together with the same

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Langston Hughes’s poem “I, Too” was written during the Harlem Renaissance, a time of booming cultural pride from African-Americans despite the suffering they had recently endured from Jim Crow - a set of local and state laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern states of America. Hughes utilizes bold syntax to express that no matter what background people come from, everyone has a place in society. He places emphasis on the fact that African-Americans are proud of their nationality by proclaiming, “I, too, sing America…I, too, am America” (Hughes 1,18). Hughes conveys that regardless of the speaker's racial background, they are still Americans, proving that they are a crucial part of society similar to everyone else. His elaborate

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In the poem, Johnson’s use of inclusive words like “we”, “our” and “us”, fused with anaphoras in each stanza, allow him to address black Americans in the north and south. Johnson uses phrases like “Let us”, “Let our”, and“We have come”, “Keep us”, and “Lest our” to unify black America and build community and culture shattered by American racism and prejudice. Without a strong foundation, how could black America improve from its “Bitter”, “Stony”, “dark”, “weary”, and “gloomy” past? Johnson’s inclusive word choice forces a shared experience among black Americans, making the issues at hand a national issue and not exclusively a southern one; hence Black Americans had to work together to reach “the white gleam” of “victory”. Johnson’s appeals to black America are further extended in his pleas for strengthening faith and progress for black Americans as well;

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The poem calls for the return of the great America that he and others have been promised. The poem is told in first person point of view indicating that Hughe’s is the speaker of the poem. Hughes uses the first person point of view to include his personal point of view of what it is like to be an African American. The people Hughes describes in his poem are mainly the poor, the immigrants, the African Americans, and the Native Americans. They are the people who have worked to find the American Dream, but have only found that it was not meant for them.

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Being born into a particular family determines how well off you are. Class in America determines the people that influence you, and the better opportunities you are exposed to. In Gregory Mantsios writing of “Class in America” you can understand the many differences between class and how one might have better success. Mantsios shows three profiles of three different people born into different classes. One of the profiles shows how the lifestyle might be born into a wealthy family.

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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.

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In the poem “I, Too”, the author Langston Hughes illustrates the key aspect of racial discrimination faces against the African Americans to further appeals the people to challenge white supremacy. He conveys the idea that black Americans are as important in the society. Frist, Hughes utilizes the shift of tones to indicate the thrive of African American power. In the first stanza, the speaker shows the sense of nation pride through the use of patriotic tone. The first line of the poem, “I, too, sing America” states the speaker’s state of mind.

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