Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes wrote about dreams, inequality, and oppression in his imagery poems. He was considered to be the best of the Harlem Renaissance poets. His beautiful poetry speaks not only to the...

The short story "Berry" is an example of satire, which is used to expose or criticize human vices, habits or behavior through ridicule, humor, irony or exaggeration. The story revolves around a...

Milberry Jones finds that he meets with demeaning treatment and exploitation on his new job, which isn't very different from the treatment that caused him to leave his previous job. Milberry is...

I agree with the previous poster, but I would like to add that in addition to the poetry, short stories, and plays that Hughes is best known for, he's also the author of a great number of essays,...

Milberry had learned to solve problems through hard work. He had made a decision that he was not going to be bothered by other people's prejudices because he had suffered too much and was not...

Langston Hughes was the poetic voice of not just a generation, but of an entire race. Born in the mid-west in the early 1900’s, his work became synonymous with the struggle for equality during the...

In his essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," poet Langston Hughes interprets the statement of a young African-American poet that, "I want to be a poet—not a Negro poet," to mean, "I...

In this poem, two former sweethearts from Ohio (Bill and Mary) randomly run into each other again in Washington Square in NYC one night. We learn that they did not marry because: Then something...

Langston Hughes was an American poet who lived from 1902 to 1967. He is considered an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a movement of Black artists, writers, and musicians in Harlem and...

In the short story "Berry" by Langston Hughes, the author illustrates the themes of racism and inequality. The main character of the story, Milberry Jones—whom the children call Berry—is hired to...

In this poem, the speaker is describing the uncomfortable mood at the dinner table where an apparently liberal white person is befriending him, or at least making a show of doing so. There is...

Of course, any work of poetry opens itself up to a number of different meanings, and it is very hard to pin down any one definitive explanation of such a diverse medium. However, here is my "take"...

The theme of appearances and reality is one of the strongest themes in "Berry." There is a phoniness to Dr. Renfield's home that "troubles" Berry. He sees it in "Mrs. Osborn's grand manner to...

Just to add to the answer above, we might say that the dream that Hughes refers to is the dream of achieving equality and freedom as a black man in a racist society. There is no direct statement of...

Langston Hughes wrote the one act play entitled A Soul Gone Home in 1963. It was part of a collection called Five Plays by Langston Hughes. The plot of the play is a sixteen-year-old boy named...

Although the audience is never specifically identified in Hughes's "Love Song for Lucinda," the reader can infer that Hughes is speaking informally in second person to a general audience as he...

The symbolism in "As I Grew Older" is robust and center-stage in the poem. Indeed, the poem is structured entirely around two key images, which are repeated for emphasis. The first symbol is that...

As the story opens, an employment office in Jersey City has sent a worker, Milberry Jones, to a large home near the beach that houses disabled children for the summer. It's run in part by Mrs....

All right, so we need to determine theme. An easy way to think about theme is to answer this question: What statement about the world is the speaker of the poem sending to the reader. If you can...

Though Hughes' dream is not explicitly stated in the poem, it is implied. Certain lines tell us that he has fought for his dream and others suggest he succeeded in fulfilling his dream. From these...

In "Madam and the Rent Man," the subject and conflict are one in the same. It is an argument between a tenant and a rent collector. The tenant, or Madam, is refusing to pay her rent because of...

Langston Hughes was the poetic voice of the African-American in the mid-twentieth century. Often feeling disenfranchised from white society, Hughes’ poetry spoke to the black community to never...

In both of these poems, Langston Hughes expresses his concerns about how Whites are not truly seeking to understand Blacks, and how White culture is appropriating and using the products of the...

Nancy Lee does not lose her pride and self-worth because these were neither created nor nurtured by the committee. All the sensations of pride in winning the scholarship were formulated and...

The thesis of Langston Hughes's essay entitled "Salvation" is found in the first and last lines of the piece. He begins by saying, "I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen. But not really...

“The City” by Langston Hughes is an eight-line long poem. It consists of two stanzas each containing four lines. Four-line stanzas are called "quatrains." The lines each contain two stressed...

Since this poem is not divided into stanzas, I'll separate into sections which make sense for meaning. I dream a world where manNo other man will scorn, The speaker opens with his vision of a new...

I think if you are looking for a message in this poem, it has to concern the stubborn choice of the speaker to live in spite of what is happening to his or her life and the recognition that, as it...

Langston Hughes's poem "Life is Fine" focuses on the struggles of a man who is dealing with heartbreak. In this poem, the man contemplates suicide by both jumping into a river and then jumping from...

I swear to the LordI still can't seeWhy Democracy meansEverybody but me. This is Langston Hughes's poem "The Black Man Speaks" from Jim Crow's Last Stand (1943). The title gives us some context,...

"Madam and her Madam" utilizes irony to convey the delicate conflict between a wealthy white woman and the black woman, Alberta, she uses to complete the many tasks of the household. Hughes employs...

The poem, "Oppression," epitomizes "the gentle but insistent protest that runs through Hughes’s poems" (eNotes) and this stands as a good summation of the poem's point of view. The point of view...

Camille Dungy's poem "Because It Looked Hotter That Way" is, interestingly, an acrostic poem that utilizes the last words of Gwendolyn Brooks's "We Real Cool" and, thus, restricts its form.(Here is...

"The Pushcart Man" and "Drama for Winter Night" are two of my favorite works by Langston Hughes. I think I can help you find lots of ways in which the individual is both embedded and alienated in...

Bill and Mary had been in love with each other when they were both young. When they were a couple, they used to take evening walks and talk together. They stopped speaking after "something not very...

In the poem, Langston Hughes creates a contrast between a thematic project staged on a train, which traveled the United States beginning in 1947 and had no African American personnel, and ordinary...

The first line of this very short and thought-provoking poem is “The ivory gods and the ebony gods.” To help you get started in your analysis of themes and literary devices in this work, let us...

In his poem “As I Grow Older, Langston Hughes wrote of his dreams for his fellow black man. When he was younger, these dreams were never far from his thoughts. As the poem progressed, so did the...

The one-act play written by Langston Hughes entitled A Soul Gone Home portrays several messages about poverty, family, racial inequality, and selfishness. This play was written in 1937, which was a...

Langston Hughes, born in 1902, is remembered for his short stories and poetry which were great influences in the Harlem Renaissance. His work was steeped in the politics of race relations, as he...

Both "I, Too" and "The Weary Blues" focus on African American men who try to express themselves. In "I, Too," the speaker tries to express himself by an act of simple defiance, namely his refusal...

He frequently uses metaphors, similes and symbolism. If you look at his poem "Mother to Son," he has a mother giving advice to her son, and she compares life to an old staircase that one must keep...

There are no super explicit examples of personification in Langston Hughes's "As I Grew Older," but there are several lines where personification may be implied. The first thing that Hughes could...

The entire poem's literal meaning is that because Langston Hughes is black, he cannot achieve his dreams. Racism, prejudice, limited opportunities and discrimination keep him back from achieving...

The main theme in the poem is perhaps the theme of identity. The speaker seems to be a satirical parody or caricature of a supposedly masculine "bad man" stereotype. He doesn't know why he "beats...

Both of the poems, Langston Hughes' "Little Old Letter," and James Weldon Johnson's "Since You Went Away," deal with the subject of loss. However, the poems are very different in tone. Whereas...

The poetry of Langston Hughes tends to be almost deceptively simple in style. If you look at some of his best-known poems—"Harlem, "Jukebox Love Song," "April Rain Song," or "Dreams"—you see that...

Characterization is one element used in "Who's Passing for Who?" It is interesting to look at the way Hughes developed the white characters and the black characters. The white couple who tricks...

Hughes uses a variety of rhetorical devices in "That Word Black." Most obviously, Hughes uses repetition. First, he repeats the word black when listing the various words and phrases in which the...

In Langston Hughes's short story "Berry," the African-American boy named Milberry Jones, called Berry for short, is instantly treated like an "other" the moment he arrives to work in the kitchen at...