Langston Hughes Landlord

In the poem “Ballard of the Landlord”, Hughes uses the literary device tone. At the beginning of the poem, the character’s tone was calm and a little bit sarcastic while trying to tell his landlord his home needed to be fixed up. He says, “when you come up yourself / It’s a wonder you don’t fall down” (7-8). The tone of this is being sarcastic but he is not being aggressive; he is just trying to get his point across to his landlord. After the landlord says he still has to pay the rent money, he then begins to get angry. “You ain’t gonna be able to say a word / If I land my fist on you” (19-20). You can see he is now getting upset and aggressive because the landlord is ignoring him and is making him pay for a leaking roof with a house that has