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The Weary Blues By Langston Hughes

884 Words4 Pages

The pain of a Negro musician The poem’s purpose was to vocalize the hard ship of the dark culture and to utilize the blues, which at the time was viewed as African American music. Blues was a way for African Americans to deliver messages and expression. The purpose of the poem is to express the suffering of African American people. The poem has a lot to do with the torment and mishandle of African Americans. “Hughes uses the blues itself as songful lament for the black experience in America” (Brown). This source indicates that the purpose of the poem is to show the suffering of the black people. The theme of the poem is to express black culture through music. This source will be used to indicate the meaning, purpose, expression of the poem and the literary techniques that the poem uses. Poetry for Students discussed that the narrator contrasted the blues singer’s black skin with the white keys of the piano …show more content…

Hughes opens his poem with a speaker who comes across a “Negro” musician in the lines, “I heard a Negro play. / Down on Lenox Avenue the other night / By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light” (“The Weary Blues” 3-4). Per the source Poetry for Students, the source discusses a speaker’s memory of hearing the bluesman sing and play (“The Weary Blues”). This line of the poem is important because it gives the reader a clear picture of where the blues singer was located and the setting of the poem. In the essential sentence, the musician is recognized as an African American male referred by the term Negro, a term that is now out of date, yet was current when this work was formed. The source Poetry for Students, explains the theme of the poem as “Black Culture.” Hughes’ poem gives an image of sadness and pain. The poem expresses the culture of the old ages and the pain that the musician is dealing

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