Oppression
- Submitted by: mdude1
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 01/11/2012 07:22 PM
- Pages: 3
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Just One Dream
Many fought against oppression and had a dream of equality. Many had to cast down their buckets and appreciated what they had. Many wanted respect through literature and education. But one civil rights leader helped change the world by listening to Jazz and Blues music in a club. Langston Hughes’ conveyed message accentuates for individuals who are oppressed through use of anaphora, allusion, irony, and rhetorical questions.
There are many literary terms that enhance the author’s conveyed message, for example, anaphora. Anaphora created an understanding of what the poet wants the reader to understand. After the first and second stanzas, Langston Hughes states, “ America was never America to me.”. This highlights the whole meaning of the poem, that he begs for the dream that it never was. That everyone other than the oppressed are optimistic of America’s democratic opportunities, but Langston Hughes is a black person and part of the oppressed society. He is writing in the point of view of someone who is less happy of what America is.
Another literary term that enhances the author’s conveyed message is allusion. He alludes on how we live in a flawed democracy in which many didn’t receive the rights they deserved. In the poem, it states
“O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a “‘homeland of the free.’”
He put “homeland of the free” in quotations, because this is really not what it was. He’s referring to the millions of immigrants who have stepped foot on America to realize that it isn’t the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”. It’s the land of the oppressed and the home of the scarred, where you couldn’t even vote if you were a woman, black person, and many more. To call this a democracy is close to madness.
Other literary...
Many fought against oppression and had a dream of equality. Many had to cast down their buckets and appreciated what they had. Many wanted respect through literature and education. But one civil rights leader helped change the world by listening to Jazz and Blues music in a club. Langston Hughes’ conveyed message accentuates for individuals who are oppressed through use of anaphora, allusion, irony, and rhetorical questions.
There are many literary terms that enhance the author’s conveyed message, for example, anaphora. Anaphora created an understanding of what the poet wants the reader to understand. After the first and second stanzas, Langston Hughes states, “ America was never America to me.”. This highlights the whole meaning of the poem, that he begs for the dream that it never was. That everyone other than the oppressed are optimistic of America’s democratic opportunities, but Langston Hughes is a black person and part of the oppressed society. He is writing in the point of view of someone who is less happy of what America is.
Another literary term that enhances the author’s conveyed message is allusion. He alludes on how we live in a flawed democracy in which many didn’t receive the rights they deserved. In the poem, it states
“O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a “‘homeland of the free.’”
He put “homeland of the free” in quotations, because this is really not what it was. He’s referring to the millions of immigrants who have stepped foot on America to realize that it isn’t the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”. It’s the land of the oppressed and the home of the scarred, where you couldn’t even vote if you were a woman, black person, and many more. To call this a democracy is close to madness.
Other literary...