Langston Hughes '' The Blues'

That Justice is a blind goddess, is a thing to which we black are wise:

Her bandage hides two festering sores that once perhaps were eyes. Those searing, gut-wrenching lines were written by Langston Hughes, an African American poet of the early twentieth century era. Hughes was a great poet who wrote many a magnificent poem. Often, a man of few words, even the shortest of his poems could be provocative and knock you in to deep thought.

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born on February first, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He had a rough childhood and very tough adult years, with little stability in his early life. Soon after being born, Hughes’ parents separated. His father went to Mexico and his mother left him unattended for long periods of

On the one hand, Hughes teaches the reader to make light of life’s day to day problems – suggesting that when things don’t go your way – shrug it off as the blues. On the other hand at a very deep level the poem talks about shoe strings, candy bars, and dimes which out of context may make zero sense, but what the first stanza really means is: in America, after World War 2, people wanted to mask their poverty so they went on spending sprees even though their bank accounts may have been empty. Again in the second stanza during the same time, people felt the need to have no sadness in their lives anymore. That's when people started to seek pleasure however momentary, such as through drugs and alcohol which would give one pleasure for the moment but then one would get addicted and have consequences. Eventually it would get to the point that one did drugs or drank so much alcohol that one would have no money, but, addicted, one would keep doing it and doing it until one lost all they had and went deep in to debt. From then onwards it’s just an unending spiral of despair, which is the antithesis to the purpose of using drugs or becoming an alcoholic in the first place. This is shown by the poem’s use of candy bars which make one happy and gives one sugar rush for the time one eats it but then immediately crashes, leaving one with no energy. Eventually, as one keeps on eating and buying candy bars, one goes back into the downward spiral in which one gets fatter and loses more money which is what the coin analogy is for. The coin analogy is used to represent the amount of money one has. When it slips out of the persons pocket, it is representing the money being spent until one has no money left to use. But the person still goes and buys the candy bar which will give them momentary joy but leave them in debt. This is what the short poem of “The Blues”