Langston Hughes

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Langston Hughes establishes a connection between the ancient rivers of the past, which birthed
civilization, to the prominent Mississippi, where the victim of slavery and discrimination in the New World
were traded throughout America.
Theme:
1. Race and the experience of being a second-class citizen (Because of skin color)
2. Race and Passing: A phenomenon known as “Passing” = a light skinned blacked person living as a
white person
3. African Heritage: Africa is viewed as an ancient place of origin, therefore a prime source of artistic
insight as seen in Hughes’s “A Negro Speaks of Rivers” – the thousands of years of African
experience inside him.
4. Conflict Images of Blacks: They are the most difficult issues that black writers have to deal with:
how to portray African American. Some wanted to illustrate black society only in the most
positive fashion, writing stories filled with middle-class, educated character, working to become
successful in a white-dominated society.
Techniques:
1. **Didactic and Colloquial
2. Repetition of words “I’ve known rivers..” at the beginning of two emphasizes certainty. =
confident of the speaker. “I” is a collective voice of black people from ancient times (3000 b.c.e.)
to the present.
[It is as though he is an old man looking back at the events that he and the entire Negro race
has lived through.]
3. Written in the first-person voice but He transcends time and place and speaks for an entire
group.
4. Writes with a musical beat. The musical impression makes the reader feel that the speaker is
singing, praying, or preaching.
5. The entire poem is based on an extended metaphor comparing the heritage of the African
American to the great rivers of the world.
Tone: solemn and proud.
Symbolize:
1. Panegeric and Eurogy = Praising his own race
2. “My soul, dusky rivers.” = river’s role in African American life – origin of civilization, use to
transport black slave, and (literally) black people is in an agriculture
3. Rivers = The passage of time, history, and influence to show the movement of the Negro through
time.
 o The first three rivers mentioned represent the ancestral homelands of black people, while the
fourth represents recent history and the future.
o The Euphrates River = the dawn of civilization; Mesopotamia, site of the first cities was located
between the Tigris and Euphrates. By mentioning the Euphrates "when dawns were young,"
the speaker traces his origins back to humanity's earliest days.
o The Congo, one of the largest rivers in the world, runs from central to west Africa = the region
of Africa—West Africa—from which the largest number of blacks were sold into the European
slave markets, recalling a more painful part of black history.
o The Nile is in northern Africa. Linking the Nile and black people to pyramids suggests the
greatness of ancient African civilizations.
o Finally, the Mississippi River in America = both slavery and freedom. By referencing Abe
Lincoln in connection with the Mississippi, Hughes alludes to the Emancipation Proclamation
(การปลดปล่อย), which declared freedom for slaves in the southern U.S.
o Before and after picture of the Mississippi: "muddy bosom" = the era of slavery, "all golden
in the sunset" = the end of slavery and the brighter future for black people in America after
the Civil War.
Reflects the period:
1. When the poem was written, there was racial intolerance, inequality, and complete segregation.
This poem introduced Hughes as the voice for the black and helped unite the Negro in the
beginning of the work of civil rights.
2. The last section of the poem, “I’ve known rivers:/ Ancient, dusky, rivers// My soul has grown
deep like the rivers,” re-emphasizes the beginning section by restating the influence of rivers on
the soul and life of black people from antiquity to the twentieth century. The final line of the
poem repeats the statement that connects the human soul to the rivers of the world.

I, too
It speaks of a racial divide in America that white people are perfectly content to ignore. Sending the
speaker to the kitchen to eat can be symbolic of segregation, but also of America's desire to ignore the
race problem.
Theme: defiance (ต่อต้าน)
Summary:
1. 1st stanza = I am an American. I was born in America and so were my parents. Just because I am
Black does not take away my patriotism or love for my country.
2. 2nd stanza = Hughes refers to the black man metaphorically as “the darker brother.” All Americans
have something in common: their heritage. Unfortunately, in the time that Hughes was writing, the
black man was not considered an equal in any respect. He was not allowed to use the same
restrooms, water fountains, or eat at the fountain bar in the drug store. In the home where he
worked as a servant, handy man, or chauffeur, he was expected to eat in the kitchen with the rest of
 the help. The black man goes on, laughs, eats his dinner, and grows stronger. This statement implies
that the “Negroes” were waiting their time. Living their lives and growing tough as an ethnic group
led the way to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
3. 3rd stanza = Hughes perceives a tomorrow in America where the black man will be welcome to eat
at the table with everyone else. He will dare not ask him to sit at the table. The implication of the
word dare is threatening because the black Americans will assert themselves as equal at some point
in the future; consequently, because of their power, they will not stand for anymore degradation.
4. 4th stanza = The beauty of the black man is not just the outward appearance. It is the quality of his
character. To Hughes and black Americans, the only difference between the white man and the
black man was the color of the skin—not his intelligence, his personality, his character, or anything
else. If given the same freedom and equality, the black man would rise above his circumstances just
as the white man has.
5. 5th stanza = “I, too, am America.” a powerful statement for a black man in the era in which it was
written! Hughes convincingly proves with his wonderful expression and creativity that it took too
long for the black man to be accepted as an authentic American.
Techniques:
1. Free verse
2. Metaphor: dinning and kitchen represents something,
dining table = equality because he is not allow to sit with white.
Symbolize:
1. The kitchen to eat = symbolic of segregation
Tone: pride and defiance (ภาคภูมิใจ และ ต่อต้าน)
Setting: “everywhere America” ,believed that black men were Americans and equal to the white men as
human beings.

Theme for English B

an unusual poem written as though it is an assignment for a young, black, college scholar. The
assignment from the white instructor is daunting to an inexperienced writer. It is always hard to face a
blank sheet of paper with little instructions to initiate the assignment. Assignment: Tonight, write a page
and let it come from your heart and mind. The grade will be based on the writing being honest and
individual to you.
Summary:
He gives pertinent information about himself. The boy is only 22 years old. Colored, From North Carolina,
City College of New York, and Only black student in the class. Then he begins to describe his life in
Harlem, a part of NY. The writer tries to tell that he want to have a normal life that is very normal things
than man want by describing that he wants a pipe for Christmas and lots of music. He also comments on
the fact that just because he is black does not mean that does not like the same things that white
people do.
 He hopes one day will be the definition of an American: Because the instructor and the student
share a common bond, the English class, they have become a part of each other. The teacher is white,
so he is a part of the student. The student is black, then he is a part of the teacher. That is what it
means to be an American. The student has a question in his mind about the teacher actually wanting to
be a part of him; and he admits that he does not really want to be a part of the instructor.