How Does Langston Hughes Use Imagery In Those Winter Sundays

Both "Harlem" by Langston Hughes and "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden make great use of imagery to present readers their theme and tone. The poem "Harlem" seems to be made up entirely imagery and uses a wide variety of imagery such as visual, olfactory, gustatory, etc. The poem "Those Winter Sundays" mainly uses auditory, tactile, and visual imagery. "Harlem" uses imagery to convey to readers the theme of dreams that have been pushed aside. "Those Winter Sundays" uses imagery to convey the themes of love and sacrifice that a father has for his children.

In "Harlem" the author asks about the dreams that have been pushed aside. He asks "Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?" (2-3). These lines use visual imagery to and cause the reader to imagine a grape drying up and turning into a raisin. It causes the reader to think about how if a dream for a better life is pushed aside, it will eventually become old and be forgotten. The author then includes this line "Or fester like a sore-" (4), which is used to make the reader visualize a wound that has gone

The speaker then mentions that "and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold" (2). This line makes use of visual, tactile, and synesthetic imagery. The use of color would normally cause the reader think about what they see but in this case, color is used to make the reader think about how cold the setting is. The next line makes use of both visual and tactile imagery when it mentions "then with cracked hands that ached" (3). The reader begins to visualize the cracked hands of the father who has worked hard all week. The reader also begins to get a sense of how tired the hands of the father are. The author makes use of auditory imagery with the line "I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking" (6). The reader gets a sense of how cold it must be in the house based on this use of