Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was a great writer and poet who displayed determination in his poems to try and inspire people. Great authors like Langston Hughes use the power of language when they want to connect with people to try and understand their thoughts and ideas. In Hughes's poems, he includes a lot of sensory details and imagery to try and give the people a real idea of what he was going through. He faces hard obstacles to try and accomplish his dreams that start to slowly fade away. Hughes skillfully uses the power of imagery, diction, and syntax to create and shape meaning in his reflective poem “As I Grew Older.”

Hughes use of imagery in the poem helps us illustrate the hard times he was going through trying to accomplish his dream. Hughes referred to “the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream” (Poem 1) because he is really

Hughes poem “As I Grew Older” is centered in the middle of the page which could be representing the wall Hughes describes in his poem. You can also see towards the end of the poem Hughes starts using the same beginning letter twice in a row; “To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams” (Poem 1). Hughes might want to do this because, when people usually get excited they repeat themselves, and where Hughes says “To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams” (Poem 1) he might be getting excited because he’s finally finding his dream again. “As I Grew Older” is one of Langston Hughes longer poems, which could also be seen as the long wall blocking him from achieving his dream in his poem. The way Hughes demonstrates diction, imagery, and syntax in his poem, give us a real image of the struggles he was going through to write this great