Langston Hughes Refugee In America

Langston Hughes was a poet, author, and civil rights movement leader who was born in Missouri, on February 1st, 1902. His most famous piece of work is his poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Hughes tells a story throughout the course of his writing, especially in two other poems called “I, Too” and “Refugee in America”. These three poems play hand in hand in figuring out Hughes life journey. His life journey helps people have an understanding about what others went through as well as reflecting on the past and changing it. There is a sense of underlying determination throughout the poems which carries into our lives, it gives us the message to work hard for what you want and it overall gives us hope for the future.

There is a specific

There are three stages, realizing the problem, fixing it, and admiring your work after it’s over. There is very specific word choice used on purpose to let the audience know what his thoughts were. Going back to “Refugee in America”, there are only two paragraphs that revolves around two words, Freedom and Liberty. In the first stanza Hughes states that “There are words like Freedom”, then follows up with positive connotations like “sweet and wonderful to say” and “On my heart-strings freedom sings”. The structure of the poem is parallel but when he says “There are words like Liberty” in the second stanza, the mood completely shifts. Hughes follows the statement with negative connotations such as “make me cry” and “if you had known what I knew”. The shift between the two stanzas is the realization that Blacks are actually not completely free and have the same rights. “I, Too” is a response to a poem called “I hear America Singing” which basically talks about how everybody in society has their own unique song that they can create. “I hear America Singing” was written by a white author. The first line of “I, Too” says “I, too, sing America”. The word choice used is figurative, same when he says “They send me to eat in the kitchen”. The tone and diction shifts to an emotional state when he says “Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table” and “They’ll see how beautiful I am”. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” uses the word “ancient” to describe the rivers he has known. He chooses the word ancient because the rivers have been around for thousands of years and it sounds more appealing than the word