Last Two Stanzas of Let America Be America Again
'Let America Exist America Again' was written in 1935 and originally published a year later in Esquire Magazine. And so later in A New Vocal, a pocket-size drove of poems. The poem was written while Hughes was traveling from New York to see his mother in Ohio. Due to recent personal events, reviews, and the health of his mother, he turned to writing as an outlet to express some of his deeper thoughts about what information technology was truly similar to alive in America. This verse form explores the themes of identity, freedom, and equality. It is only as applicable to today's world every bit it was in the mid-thirties. Readers today volition discover several entry points into Hughes' experience of the American Dream.
Summary of Permit America Be America Again
'Let America Be America Again' by Langston Hughes is focused on the American Dream, what information technology ways, and how it is impossible to capture.
The verse form takes the reader through the perspective of those who have been put-upon by a organisation that is supposed to assistance them. They are the poor, the immigrants, the African Americans, and the Native Americans. They are whatever who have sought the American Dream and institute it to be nonexistent, at to the lowest degree for them.
Through the text, Hughes outlines what information technology would mean to really have the America that people say exists. It will crave taking the state dorsum from the "leeches" who feed on the poor and truly achieving freedom.
You tin read the full poem here.
Structure of Let America Be America Again
'Let America Be America Over again' by Langston Hughes is an lxxx-six line poem that is divided up into seventeen stanzas of varying lengths. The shortest stanzas are only 1 line long and the longest stretches to twelve. Normally, the poem is quite interesting. The stanzas are inconsistent, some of the lines are in parenthesis and some in italics.
There is not a single rhyme scheme that unites the entire poem, but there are patterns for stanzas and for sections. For example, the start three quatrains, 4-line stanzas, by and large rhyme ABAB. Equally the poem progresses though the rhyme scheme is less consistent. In that location are several examples of half-rhyme likewise.
Half-rhyme, also known every bit slant or fractional rhyme, is seen through the repetition of assonance or consonance. This means that either a vowel or consonant sound is reused within one line or multiple lines of verse. For example, "soil" and "all" in lines thirty-1 and xxx-three.
Poetic Techniques in Let America Exist America Again
Hughes makes use of several poetic techniques in 'Let America Exist America Once more'. These include but are not limited to anaphora, enjambment, alliteration, and metaphor. The starting time, anaphora, is the repetition of a word or phrase at the kickoff of multiple lines, usually in succession. This technique is often used to create emphasis. A list of phrases, items, or deportment may exist created through its implementation. This technique is used often throughout the poem. For example, "Allow it be" at the beginning of lines two and three, every bit well as "I am the" which starts a total of ten lines.
Alliteration occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear close together, and begin with the same audio. For example, "dream the dreamers dreamed" in line six.
Some other important technique commonly used in poetry is enjambment. Information technology occurs when a line is cut off before its natural stopping point. Enjambment forces a reader downwardly to the side by side line, and the next, quickly. One has to move frontward in club to comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. There are several examples in this poem, including the transitions between lines eleven and twelve, as well equally twenty-six and 20-seven.
A metaphor is a comparison betwixt two unlike things that does not use "like" or "as" is too present in the text. When using this technique a poet is proverb that 1 thing is another affair, they aren't only similar. For example, a reader can look to lines twenty-six and twenty-vii which read "Tangled in that ancient countless chain / Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!"
Analysis of Allow America Be America Again
Lines ane-v
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
(…)
(America never was America to me.)
In the first stanza of 'Permit America Be America Over again,' the speaker begins by making apply of the line that after came to be used as the championship. He is asking that things go back to the way they used to be, at least in everyone'south mind. There was, some indeterminately long fourth dimension agone, the feeling that annihilation was possible in America. There was the liberty of the "patently" and the ability to seek a domicile for oneself. But, that dream is changing. It is not what information technology "used to be".
This first quatrain is followed past a single line "(America never was America to me). To Hughes, living as a black man in America, things were ever different.
Lines 6-x
Let America exist the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong country of love
(…)
(Information technology never was America to me.)
The second quatrain reemphasizes what for some was a real, tangible dream they could strive for. The give-and-take "dream" is repeated several times throughout these kickoff stanzas, emphasizing the fact that that is what information technology is—a dream. The poet asks that the "swell strong land of love" return. It is, in this description, an ideal place where tyranny has no foothold. Never, in this idealized version, was a man crushed by i above him.
But, as a contemporary reader should sympathize, this is only fiction. That is not the America that exists today, nor did information technology ever exist. Hughes makes this clear in the follow up of a single line, once more in parenthesis, which says "Information technology never was America to me". He knows his ain experience and is non going to ignore it.
Lines xi-16
O, let my country be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no simulated patriotic wreath,
(…)
(There'due south never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the gratis.")
The third quatrain follows the same ABAB rhyme scheme as the previous two. A two-line stanza, in parenthesis, follows. He dives back into this over the top, idealized image of America. It is, in the stories, songs, and movies, a "state where Liberty / Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath". Everything is perfect there and each person can attain success and happiness. The "opportunity is real" and "life is gratis". The discussion "free" is central hither.
The 2 that follow, which provide the reader with insight into the speaker's existent thoughts well-nigh America, depict something unlike. He has not experienced that universal "quality" that America is supposedly known for. It is non the "'homeland of the complimentary"' for him.
Lines 17-24
Say, who are you that mumbles in the night?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
(…)
And finding only the aforementioned old stupid plan
Of canis familiaris eat dog, of mighty shell the weak.
The pattern that had been developing in the previous stanzas of 'Let America Be America Over again' dissolves when another two-line stanza follows. Lines seventeen and 18 are in italics. This was one in order to draw increased attention to them as a turning signal in the poem. Things are almost to alter in how the speaker talks about America.
These lines ask two questions. They are directed at the previous statements that came in parenthesis. The speaker's negativity is questioned. These lines suggest that the speaker is trying to do something evil. In his free spoken language, he is trying to disrupt the normal mode people encounter the world.
The following six lines provide the voice with the first part of an answer. The speaker responds by saying that he is not only one person, but many. He is the collected listen of those that have not been able to get in impact with the American dream. He is the "poor white" that has been "fooled" and taken advantage of by those richer than he. The speaker is also the "Negro bearing slavery'due south scars" and the "blood-red human being," a reference to Native Americans, who were "driven from the land". These, as well equally immigrant children, are outlined in this showtime stanza of response.
He has establish nothing in the earth to make him believe in the American dream. There is only the "same old stupid plan / Of dog swallow canis familiaris" and the potent destroying those below them.
Lines 25-30
I am the young human being, full of forcefulness and promise,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
(…)
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for ane'due south own greed!
The next six lines of 'Allow America Be America Again' provide additional lines in response to the question. He is representing the "young man" who began full of promise and is now stuck in the web of capitalism and the "dog eat dog" world.
Hughes uses anaphora in these lines to emphasize what it takes to move through the world while seeking success. One has to catch "profit, power". They have to "grab the gold" and "grab the means of satisfying need". It is take, accept, take.
Lines 31-38
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
(…)
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
The side by side four lines of 'Let America Be America Over again' besides use anaphora in the repetition of "I am" at the beginning of the lines. He explains that he too represents the farmer, worker, Negro, and "people, humble, hungry, mean". The employ of alliteration in this line makes the stanza overall feel more than rhythmic. One should bounce from word to word while taking in Hughes's meaning.
He is anybody that has been pushed downwards and locked out of the American Dream as he outlined it in the showtime few stanzas. That dream does non exist for him. He refers to them as men and women who "never got ahead". He is the "poorest worker bartered" by employers, "through the years".
Lines 39-50
Yet I'grand the i who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
(…)
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The next stanza of 'Allow American Be America Over again' is the longest of the poem with twelve lines. Information technology speaks on the history of those who accept come to America in search of that dream simply have been unable to discover it. He "dreamt our basic dream" while even so in the "Old World" where dreams such as that felt incommunicable. He relates the immigrants who first came to America, and the dream they were seeking, to its nonexistence today. They wanted something potent, brave, and true but that does non exist now.
He casts himself equally "the homo who staled those early on seas" looking for a new home. He is the Irishman, the Pole, the Englishman, he is the African "torn from Black Africa's strand". All are in America now wanting to build a life.
Lines 51-61
The free?
Who said the free? Non me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
(…)
The millions who have zippo for our pay—
Except the dream that's nearly dead today.
The word "complimentary" is in question in the post-obit line. It stands by itself, a two-word line. "The free?" It draws the reader's attention in an acute and precise way.
He follows this upwards with a serial of questions asking who would even say the give-and-take "complimentary?" The millions who are "shot down when we strike?" Or those who "have nada for our pay?" There is no "complimentary" to speak of.
All that's left for whatsoever of those people that Hughes has mentioned is the sliver of the dream that's "nearly dead today".
Lines 62-69
O, let America exist America once again—
The land that never has been yet—
(…)
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the pelting,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
The opening line of 'Allow America Be America Again' is repeated at the beginning of this stanza. Here, he explores what America is really like and what he would like information technology to be. He speaks of himself, "ME" and all those who "made America" what it is. Those who should benefit most are also those who gave their "sweat and blood". America is congenital on "religion and pain" and it is those who have given the most who should benefit. He hopes that the dream will return to them, anytime.
Lines 70-79
Sure, phone call me whatever ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
(…)
O, yes,
I say it patently,
America never was America to me,
(…)
The seventieth line of 'Let America Be America Once more' admits that many are going to push button dorsum against the speaker. He will be called "ugly name[south]" just nothing is going to end him from pursuing the freedom he wants. It is a brave and honorable thing to pursue freedom and he won't be knocked down by the "leeches". These are the men and women who take advantage of the hard-working people mentioned in the previous stanzas. He speaks rousingly to the masses, "We must accept dorsum our land again" and make it the America information technology was meant to be.
It might not take been America to this speaker before, or correct now, but through these lines, he establishes a goal to make information technology the America he wants.
Lines fourscore-86
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
(…)
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
In the terminal lines of 'Let America Be America Again' the speaker explains that from the dark, "rape and rot of graft, and steal, and lies" there will come something bright and good. The people are going to exist redeemed and costless. The vastness of the land will resemble the vastness and freedom of the people. Those put upon and forgotten will renew the world.
Source: https://poemanalysis.com/langston-hughes/let-america-be-america-again/
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