Langston Hughes Exile In America

Hughes Essay Langston Hughes, wrote “Refugee in America”, “I, Too”, and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Hughes lived from February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967 and was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. Hughes was also one of the earliest innovators of the literary art form, jazz poetry. My thesis for the connection of these three poems are that they all relate to oppression and the change that is to come one day.

As you read these three poems you can sense a way that Hughes is trying to get the reader to understand the meaning behind these poems. First you read “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and see that he is talking from the perspective of an African American before they are a slave but

Where he “Bathed in the Euphrates,” built his “hut near the Congo,” “Looked upon the Nile,” and “Heard the singing of the Mississippi,”. Secondly you read “I, Too” and as you read you can see that hughes is still speaking in the tone of an African American but is in the phase of being a slave. For they send him “to eat in the kitchen When company comes,” since slaves were never given to the privilege to eat at the table. They were to just work and stay low-key. But the slave knows that one day they will no longer be oppressed and will “be at the table When company comes.” And that “Nobody’ll dare say,” to “Eat in the kitchen,” Last, you’ll read “Refugee in America” and you see that Hughes is speaking in the form of a refugee that is escaping from oppression and is ready for change by coming to the US. They have the change of

River, is a big symbol that is connected to the Negro speaker. The Negro talks about how they have grown up all around these rivers and have caused his soul to “grow deep like the rivers.” The river symbolizes a motherly character that comforts them. An example is when the Congo “lulled” them to sleep, as if it was a mother soothing her child. With “I, Too” its saying that the speaker is “too, am America.” That they are just as American as any other American born and raised and that they should be treated like everyone else. They eat like them, feel like them, and do thing like them. They are too, America. With the third poem “Refugee in America” there is many parts that come up that are seen as figurative language, such as”Freedom Sweet and wonderful to day. On my heart-strings freedom sings,” saying that the word freedom makes them feel a certain way. That it bring