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I Too America Poem Analysis

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Some people don’t have freedom. Some do but all they do is work for the government. They work and they don’t get enough money for the things that rich people might wear or what they might need, but sometimes all these people need is to not give up on who they really are.“I Too am America” is a poem written by Chris McMahon. “I Too am America,” is about an immigrant who has arrived to USA to get a better life, but once he/she gets a job all they do is work and they don’t get paid fairly! In this poem “I Too am America,” Chris McMahon, the author, conveys the theme that it is important to never give up on who you are through his use of the speaker, figurative language, and attitude/tone. One way that McMahon demonstrates the theme that never giving up on who you are is through his use of the speaker, because the speaker allows the author to give the reader a more powerful way of connecting with the reader. Which allows the reader to be more engaged in the poem. For example, when the reader starts reading the poem you can feel that the reader has had a very rough life by just reading the poem. For example in lines 26-28 where it says, “I will beat you with my words/and not your violence/I too am America” (McMahon 26-28). In this part of the poem, the speaker says that instead of beating a person with violence he/she would beat them with their …show more content…

Throughout the poem, there were lots of pieces of figurative language, but more specifically there were lots of metaphors. For example, “I am the bodies that take the pesticides all day/but still no pay” (McMahon 14-15). In this piece of evidence you can tell that the speaker is comparing his body to all of the bodies that take pesticides all day without any pay. Figurative language allows the speaker to add creative additions to the poem allowing the reader to identify the theme

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