What Is the Theme of Ã¢â‚¬å“let America Be America Again

'Allow America Be America Once again' was written in 1935 and originally published a year later on in Esquire Magazine. Then later in A New Song, a pocket-size collection of poems. The verse form was written while Hughes was traveling from New York to see his mother in Ohio. Due to contempo personal events, reviews, and the health of his female parent, he turned to writing as an outlet to express some of his deeper thoughts most what it was truly like to alive in America. This poem explores the themes of identity, freedom, and equality. It is just as applicable to today's world every bit it was in the mid-thirties. Readers today will find several entry points into Hughes' experience of the American Dream.

Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

Summary of Allow America Be America Again

'Allow America Be America Once again' by Langston Hughes is focused on the American Dream, what information technology means, 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 system that is supposed to assistance them. They are the poor, the immigrants, the African Americans, and the Native Americans. They are any who accept sought the American Dream and found it to be nonexistent, at least for them.

Through the text, Hughes outlines what it would mean to really accept 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.

You can read the full poem here.

Structure of Let America Exist America Again

'Let America Exist America Again' by Langston Hughes is an eighty-six line poem that is divided up into seventeen stanzas of varying lengths. The shortest stanzas are only one line long and the longest stretches to twelve. Unremarkably, 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 instance, the get-go three quatrains, four-line stanzas, more often than not rhyme ABAB. As the verse form progresses though the rhyme scheme is less consistent. There are several examples of half-rhyme too.

Half-rhyme, also known as slant or partial rhyme, is seen through the repetition of assonance or consonance. This ways that either a vowel or consonant sound is reused inside one line or multiple lines of verse. For instance, "soil" and "all" in lines thirty-one and thirty-three.

Poetic Techniques in Let America Be America Once more

Hughes makes use of several poetic techniques in 'Let America Be America Again'. These include but are non express to anaphora, enjambment, alliteration, and metaphor. The outset, anaphora, is the repetition of a discussion or phrase at the get-go of multiple lines, usually in succession. This technique is often used to create emphasis. A listing of phrases, items, or deportment may exist created through its implementation. This technique is used frequently throughout the verse form. For instance, "Let it exist" at the starting time of lines two and three, as well as "I am the" which starts a total of ten lines.

Ingemination occurs when words are used in succession, or at least announced close together, and begin with the same sound. For example, "dream the dreamers dreamed" in line half dozen.

Another important technique usually used in poetry is enjambment. It occurs when a line is cut off before its natural stopping indicate. Enjambment forces a reader downwards to the adjacent line, and the adjacent, apace. I has to move forward in order to comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. At that place are several examples in this poem, including the transitions betwixt lines eleven and twelve, as well as twenty-half dozen and xx-seven.

A metaphor is a comparison betwixt 2 dissimilar things that does non use "like" or "as" is as well nowadays in the text. When using this technique a poet is saying that one matter is another thing, they aren't just similar. For example, a reader can look to lines twenty-six and twenty-seven which read "Tangled in that ancient endless chain / Of profit, ability, gain, of grab the land!"

Analysis of Let America Exist America Again

Lines 1-5

Allow America be America again.

Permit it exist the dream it used to be.

(…)

(America never was America to me.)

In the commencement stanza of 'Let America Exist America Again,' the speaker begins by making utilize of the line that later came to be used every bit the title. He is request that things get dorsum to the way they used to be, at least in everyone's mind. At that place was, some indeterminately long time agone, the feeling that anything was possible in America. There was the freedom of the "plain" and the ability to seek a dwelling house for oneself. Only, that dream is changing. It is not what it "used to exist".

This first quatrain is followed by a single line "(America never was America to me). To Hughes, living every bit a blackness human in America, things were ever different.

Lines six-10

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Permit it be that cracking potent country of love

(…)

(It never was America to me.)

The 2d 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 "bang-up strong land of love" return. It is, in this description, an ideal place where tyranny has no foothold. Never, in this arcadian version, was a man crushed by one above him.

Merely, as a gimmicky reader should understand, 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, again in parenthesis, which says "Information technology never was America to me". He knows his own experience and is not going to ignore information technology.

Lines 11-16

O, allow my state be a country where Freedom

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

(…)

(There'south never been equality for me,

Nor liberty in this "homeland of the free.")

The 3rd quatrain follows the same ABAB rhyme scheme every bit the previous two. A two-line stanza, in parenthesis, follows. He dives back into this over the top, idealized paradigm of America. It is, in the stories, songs, and movies, a "land where Liberty / Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath". Everything is perfect there and each person tin can achieve success and happiness. The "opportunity is existent" and "life is costless". The discussion "gratuitous" is key here.

The two that follow, which provide the reader with insight into the speaker'south real thoughts about America, describe something dissimilar. He has not experienced that universal "quality" that America is supposedly known for. It is not the "'homeland of the gratis"' for him.

Lines 17-24

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

(…)

And finding only the aforementioned quondam stupid program

Of domestic dog swallow dog, of mighty crush the weak.

The pattern that had been developing in the previous stanzas of 'Allow America Be America Once more' dissolves when another ii-line stanza follows. Lines seventeen and eighteen are in italics. This was i in order to depict increased attending to them equally a turning bespeak in the poem. Things are about to change in how the speaker talks about America.

These lines ask ii questions. They are directed at the previous statements that came in parenthesis. The speaker'south negativity is questioned. These lines suggest that the speaker is trying to do something evil. In his complimentary speech, he is trying to disrupt the normal manner people run into the globe.

The following six lines provide the phonation with the outset part of an reply. The speaker responds by maxim that he is not but i person, but many. He is the collected mind of those that take not been able to go in touch with the American dream. He is the "poor white" that has been "fooled" and taken advantage of past those richer than he. The speaker is also the "Negro bearing slavery'southward scars" and the "red man," a reference to Native Americans, who were "driven from the land". These, too as immigrant children, are outlined in this commencement stanza of response.

He has found nothing in the earth to make him believe in the American dream. There is only the "same sometime stupid programme / Of dog eat domestic dog" and the potent destroying those beneath them.

Lines 25-30

I am the swain, total of strength and hope,

Tangled in that aboriginal endless concatenation

(…)

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one'south ain greed!

The adjacent six lines of 'Let America Be America Again' provide boosted lines in response to the question. He is representing the "young man" who began full of promise and is at present stuck in the spider web of commercialism and the "domestic dog eat domestic dog" world.

Hughes uses anaphora in these lines to emphasize what information technology takes to move through the world while seeking success. One has to grab "profit, power". They accept to "grab the gold" and "grab the ways of satisfying demand". It is take, take, take.

Lines 31-38

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the auto.

(…)

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

The adjacent four lines of 'Permit America Be America Again' also use anaphora in the repetition of "I am" at the start of the lines. He explains that he also represents the farmer, worker, Negro, and "people, humble, hungry, mean". The utilise of alliteration in this line makes the stanza overall feel more rhythmic. One should bounce from word to word while taking in Hughes'south meaning.

He is everyone that has been pushed downwards and locked out of the American Dream as he outlined information technology in the first 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" past employers, "through the years".

Lines 39-50

Yet I'g the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

(…)

And torn from Black Africa'southward strand I came

To build a "homeland of the gratuitous."

The next stanza of 'Allow American Be America Over again' is the longest of the verse form with twelve lines. It speaks on the history of those who have come up to America in search of that dream just have been unable to find it. He "dreamt our basic dream" while still in the "Old Globe" where dreams such as that felt impossible. He relates the immigrants who commencement came to America, and the dream they were seeking, to its nonexistence today. They wanted something potent, brave, and true but that does not be now.

He casts himself as "the man who staled those early seas" looking for a new domicile. He is the Irishman, the Pole, the Englishman, he is the African "torn from Black Africa'southward strand". All are in America at present wanting to build a life.

Lines 51-61

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

(…)

The millions who have cipher for our pay—

Except the dream that's almost dead today.

The word "gratis" is in question in the following line. Information technology stands past itself, a two-word line. "The gratis?" It draws the reader'south attention in an acute and precise fashion.

He follows this upwards with a series of questions asking who would even say the word "gratis?" The millions who are "shot down when nosotros strike?" Or those who "have nothing for our pay?" There is no "costless" to speak of.

All that's left for any of those people that Hughes has mentioned is the sliver of the dream that'south "almost dead today".

Lines 62-69

O, let America be America over again—

The land that never has been yet—

(…)

Whose manus at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream once more.

The opening line of 'Let America Be America Once more' is repeated at the starting time of this stanza. Here, he explores what America is actually like and what he would like it to be. He speaks of himself, "ME" and all those who "made America" what it is. Those who should benefit near are also those who gave their "sweat and blood". America is congenital on "faith and hurting" and information technology is those who take 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 non stain.

(…)

O, yes,

I say information technology plain,

America never was America to me,

(…)

The seventieth line of 'Let America Be America Once again' admits that many are going to push dorsum confronting the speaker. He will be called "ugly proper name[s]" but nix is going to finish him from pursuing the freedom he wants. It is a brave and honorable thing to pursue freedom and he won't be knocked down past 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 dorsum our country again" and make it the America information technology was meant to be.

Information technology might not take been America to this speaker before, or right now, just through these lines, he establishes a goal to brand it the America he wants.

Lines eighty-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 brand America again!

In the concluding lines of 'Let America Be America Over again' the speaker explains that from the dark, "rape and rot of graft, and steal, and lies" at that place will come up something bright and expert. The people are going to exist redeemed and free. The vastness of the country will resemble the vastness and freedom of the people. Those put upon and forgotten will renew the earth.

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Source: https://poemanalysis.com/langston-hughes/let-america-be-america-again/