The Idea of America: Reflection on the Birth of the United States‚ by Gordon Wood. New York: The Penguin Press‚ 2011. 385 pages. Reviewed by Reah Monroe. I am reviewing The Idea of America: Reflection on the Birth of the United States to better understand the significance of the American Revolution and it’s lasting effect on the world. Gordon Wood is a Pulitzer Prize winning author that is at the top of his field and is an expert on the American Revolution. Gordon Wood is the Alva O. Way
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Langston Hughes has penned a protest poem in The Ballad of the Landlord . The protest is in the form of a tenant’s fight against a landlord who is only interested in earning the rent on the leased out property and is not interested to participate in its maintenance cost. The poem talks of social protest literature that can be traced back to the African American literature tradition which prevailed during the Harlem Renaissance ( 1920-1929) of which Langston Hughes was a practitioner. The poem reflects
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In the poem “Harlem ( A Dream Deferred)” by Langston Hughes‚ he talks about dreams. Dreams that society has‚ dreams that he has. Not a dream that you have while your sleeping but a dream that you have and want to pursue. He addresses the questions of what happens when a persons dreams are destroyed. The author uses a lot of visual‚ descriptive language to try and show that nothing good can come from not achieving your dreams. For example he compares not realizing a dream to the stench of rotten
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The poem‚ “Love Song for Lucinda” by Langston Hughes is about love and what it takes to be in love. Hughes uses a lot of metaphors and only three stanzas to talk about love in the poem. In the first stanza his poem states‚ “And the spell of its enchantment / Will never let you be” (5-6). Hughes puts this in his poem because love is supposed to always be there‚ and isn’t supposed to die. You are supposed to fall so in love that you are almost under a spell‚ and you can’t see which way is up. In the
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Langston Hughes Throughout many of Langston Hughes’ poetry‚ there seems to be a very strong theme of racism. Poems such as "Ballad of the Landlord"‚ "I‚ Too"‚ and "Dinner Guest: Me" are some good examples of that theme. The "Ballad of the Landlord" addresses the issue of prejudice in the sense of race as well as class. The lines "My roof has sprung a leak. / Don’t you ’member I told you about it/ Way last week?" (Hughes 2/4) show the reader that the speaker‚ the tenant‚ is of a much lower
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Native Son By Richard Wright Bigger Thomas‚ I believe‚ is neither the protagonist nor antagonist of Native Son. Richard Wright uses Bigger to show how the mindsets of blacks were psychologically altered due to racism in the 1930’s. Bigger’s life was lived in constant anger and fear towards the whites who were always portrayed as better and superior forcing him and the rest of the black community to live in poverty‚ segregated from the white community. Another emotion he also felt was power in
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Langston Hughes: “Jazzonia” Oh‚ silver tree! Oh‚ shining rivers of the soul! In a Harlem cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play. A dancing girl whose eyes are bold Lifts high a dress of silken gold. Oh‚ singing tree! Oh‚ shining rivers of the soul! Were Eve’s eyes In the first garden Just a bit too bold? Was Cleopatra gorgeous In a gown of gold? Oh‚ shining tree! Oh‚ silver rivers of the soul! In a whirling cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play. Langston Hughes wrote “Jazzonia” in the 1920s
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and write during a time when they could have been killed for it. The first man is the legendary Fredrick Douglas‚ who was born a slave and defied the odds of his time. The other Richard Wright‚ though in a time no as oppressed as Fredrick‚ he was a man who would not settle for less. These two men have amazing stories of how they overcame the odds and learned to read and write in a time when it was considered illegal for a Black man to have these skills. I was lucky enough to read their stories and
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Literary Analysis In the narrative “Salvation” Langston Hughes vividly paints a picture of himself as a little boy in a charismatic scene of a church where he takes us into his feelings of pressure‚ confusion‚ and disappointment in himself during his “saving” from sin by Jesus. He uses literary devices ‚to build up and develop detail of his experience‚ such as his use of dialogue‚ compression‚ and he writes in the mind of a young boy. Langston Hughes brings emotion and drama to his childhood story
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side in order to focus on things that are more important at the moment. If people have to do this for a long period of time‚ it usually begins to wear on them‚ and the effects of their deferred dreams begin to show. In Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem”‚ he implies that these deferred dreams are toxic to the person that harbors them. He presents many ways in which a person can be affected by deferred dreams‚
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