Mla Citation for Let America Be America Again
'Let America Be America Once more' was written in 1935 and originally published a year later in Esquire Mag. Then later in A New Song, a minor collection 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 most what information technology was truly like to alive in America. This poem explores the themes of identity, freedom, and equality. It is merely equally applicable to today's globe every bit it was in the mid-thirties. Readers today will find several entry points into Hughes' experience of the American Dream.
Summary of Allow America Be America Again
'Let America Be America Again' past Langston Hughes is focused on the American Dream, what information technology means, and how it is impossible to capture.
The poem takes the reader through the perspective of those who have been put-upon by a organization that is supposed to help them. They are the poor, the immigrants, the African Americans, and the Native Americans. They are any who take sought the American Dream and establish it to be nonexistent, at to the lowest degree for them.
Through the text, Hughes outlines what it would mean to really have the America that people say exists. It will require taking the country back from the "leeches" who feed on the poor and truly achieving freedom.
Yous tin read the full poem here.
Construction of Let America Be America Again
'Let America Be America Again' past Langston Hughes is an 80-six line verse form that is divided up into seventeen stanzas of varying lengths. The shortest stanzas are only ane line long and the longest stretches to twelve. Usually, the poem is quite interesting. The stanzas are inconsistent, some of the lines are in parenthesis and some in italics.
At that place is not a single rhyme scheme that unites the entire poem, but there are patterns for stanzas and for sections. For example, the get-go three quatrains, four-line stanzas, generally rhyme ABAB. As the poem progresses though the rhyme scheme is less consistent. There are several examples of one-half-rhyme besides.
Half-rhyme, also known as slant or fractional rhyme, is seen through the repetition of assonance or consonance. This means that either a vowel or consonant audio is reused inside one line or multiple lines of verse. For instance, "soil" and "all" in lines thirty-one and xxx-three.
Poetic Techniques in Let America Be America Again
Hughes makes use of several poetic techniques in 'Permit America Be America Again'. These include but are not limited to anaphora, enjambment, ingemination, and metaphor. The first, anaphora, is the repetition of a give-and-take or phrase at the beginning of multiple lines, usually in succession. This technique is ofttimes used to create accent. A listing of phrases, items, or actions may be created through its implementation. This technique is used frequently throughout the poem. For instance, "Let it be" at the beginning of lines 2 and 3, 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 announced close together, and begin with the same audio. For case, "dream the dreamers dreamed" in line six.
Another important technique commonly used in verse is enjambment. It occurs when a line is cut off before its natural stopping indicate. Enjambment forces a reader down to the next line, and the next, quickly. Ane has to movement forward in order to comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. There are several examples in this poem, including the transitions betwixt lines eleven and twelve, every bit well as 20-vi and xx-seven.
A metaphor is a comparison between two unlike things that does non use "similar" or "as" is also present in the text. When using this technique a poet is maxim that i thing is another thing, they aren't but similar. For example, a reader can look to lines twenty-half dozen and 20-seven which read "Tangled in that ancient endless chain / Of profit, power, gain, of catch the country!"
Analysis of Let America Be America Over again
Lines i-five
Permit America be America over again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
(…)
(America never was America to me.)
In the commencement stanza of 'Let America Be America Again,' the speaker begins past making apply of the line that later came to be used as the title. He is asking that things go dorsum to the way they used to be, at to the lowest degree in everyone's listen. At that place was, some indeterminately long fourth dimension ago, the feeling that anything was possible in America. At that place was the freedom of the "manifestly" and the ability to seek a habitation for oneself. But, that dream is irresolute. It is not what information technology "used to be".
This beginning quatrain is followed by a unmarried line "(America never was America to me). To Hughes, living every bit a black man in America, things were always different.
Lines 6-ten
Let America exist the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Allow it be that groovy strong land of love
(…)
(It never was America to me.)
The second quatrain reemphasizes what for some was a real, tangible dream they could strive for. The word "dream" is repeated several times throughout these first stanzas, emphasizing the fact that that is what it is—a dream. The poet asks that the "peachy potent country of dear" return. It is, in this clarification, an platonic place where tyranny has no foothold. Never, in this arcadian version, was a human crushed past one above him.
Only, as a contemporary reader should understand, this is but fiction. That is non the America that exists today, nor did it e'er exist. Hughes makes this clear in the follow upwards of a single line, again in parenthesis, which says "It never was America to me". He knows his own experience and is not going to ignore it.
Lines eleven-16
O, let my land be a state where Liberty
Is crowned with no fake patriotic wreath,
(…)
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the complimentary.")
The tertiary quatrain follows the same ABAB rhyme scheme as the previous 2. 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 "country where Liberty / Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath". Everything is perfect there and each person tin attain success and happiness. The "opportunity is real" and "life is free". The word "costless" is central here.
The 2 that follow, which provide the reader with insight into the speaker'south real thoughts about America, describe something different. He has non experienced that universal "quality" that America is supposedly known for. Information technology is not the "'homeland of the complimentary"' for him.
Lines 17-24
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil beyond the stars?
(…)
And finding simply the same old stupid programme
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
The pattern that had been developing in the previous stanzas of 'Let America Exist America Again' dissolves when another ii-line stanza follows. Lines seventeen and eighteen are in italics. This was 1 in order to draw increased attention to them as a turning point in the poem. Things are nearly to modify in how the speaker talks almost 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 exercise something evil. In his complimentary oral communication, he is trying to disrupt the normal mode people see the world.
The post-obit six lines provide the phonation with the first part of an reply. 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 touch 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 besides the "Negro begetting slavery'southward scars" and the "reddish man," a reference to Native Americans, who were "driven from the land". These, likewise as immigrant children, are outlined in this showtime stanza of response.
He has found nothing in the world to make him believe in the American dream. There is only the "aforementioned old stupid plan / Of domestic dog eat dog" and the strong destroying those beneath them.
Lines 25-xxx
I am the swain, full of force and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
(…)
Of work the men! Of have the pay!
Of owning everything for 1's own greed!
The side by side six lines of 'Permit America Exist America Once more' provide additional lines in response to the question. He is representing the "young man" who began full of hope and is now stuck in the web of capitalism and the "canis familiaris eat dog" world.
Hughes uses anaphora in these lines to emphasize what it takes to move through the world while seeking success. Ane has to grab "profit, ability". They have to "grab the golden" and "catch the ways of satisfying need". It is accept, take, take.
Lines 31-38
I am the farmer, bondservant to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the automobile.
(…)
I am the human being who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
The next four lines of 'Let America Exist America Again' also use anaphora in the repetition of "I am" at the beginning of the lines. He explains that he besides represents the farmer, worker, Negro, and "people, apprehensive, hungry, mean". The utilize of alliteration in this line makes the stanza overall feel more than rhythmic. 1 should bounce from word to word while taking in Hughes'south meaning.
He is everyone that has been pushed downwardly and locked out of the American Dream as he outlined information technology in the first few stanzas. That dream does not 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'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Sometime Globe while still a serf of kings,
(…)
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the complimentary."
The next stanza of 'Let American Be America Again' is the longest of the poem with twelve lines. It speaks on the history of those who have come to America in search of that dream but have been unable to find it. He "dreamt our basic dream" while notwithstanding in the "Old World" where dreams such as that felt impossible. He relates the immigrants who first came to America, and the dream they were seeking, to its nonexistence today. They wanted something strong, brave, and truthful but that does not be now.
He casts himself as "the man 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 Blackness Africa's strand". All are in America now wanting to build a life.
Lines 51-61
The free?
Who said the complimentary? Non me?
Surely non me? The millions on relief today?
(…)
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
The give-and-take "free" is in question in the post-obit line. It stands by itself, a 2-word line. "The free?" It draws the reader's attention in an acute and precise manner.
He follows this up with a series of questions request who would fifty-fifty say the word "free?" The millions who are "shot down when we strike?" Or those who "accept nothing for our pay?" At that place is no "free" to speak of.
All that's left for whatsoever of those people that Hughes has mentioned is the sliver of the dream that'southward "almost expressionless today".
Lines 62-69
O, let America be America 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 'Let America Be America Over again' is repeated at the starting time of this stanza. Here, he explores what America is really like and what he would similar information technology to be. He speaks of himself, "ME" and all those who "made America" what it is. Those who should do good nigh are also those who gave their "sweat and blood". America is congenital on "faith and pain" and it is those who have given the most who should do good. He hopes that the dream will return to them, anytime.
Lines 70-79
Sure, call me whatever ugly name you cull—
The steel of liberty does not stain.
(…)
O, yes,
I say information technology plain,
America never was America to me,
(…)
The seventieth line of 'Permit America Exist America Again' admits that many are going to push dorsum against the speaker. He will be called "ugly name[s]" but nothing is going to finish him from pursuing the freedom he wants. It is a dauntless and honorable affair to pursue freedom and he won't exist knocked downward 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 take back our country over again" and make it the America it was meant to be.
It might not have been America to this speaker before, or correct now, but through these lines, he establishes a goal to make it the America he wants.
Lines eighty-86
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster decease,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
(…)
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And brand America once more!
In the final lines of 'Let America Exist America Over again' the speaker explains that from the dark, "rape and rot of graft, and steal, and lies" there volition come something vivid and good. The people are going to be redeemed and gratis. The vastness of the country 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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