What Is the Theme of â€å“let America Be America Again

'Let America Be America Over again' was written in 1935 and originally published a year later on in Esquire Magazine. And then subsequently in A New Song, a small collection of poems. The verse form was written while Hughes was traveling from New York to meet his mother in Ohio. Due to contempo personal events, reviews, and the wellness of his mother, he turned to writing as an outlet to limited some of his deeper thoughts about what it was truly like to alive in America. This poem explores the themes of identity, freedom, and equality. It is but as applicable to today's globe as information technology was in the mid-thirties. Readers today volition detect several entry points into Hughes' experience of the American Dream.

Summary of Let America Exist America Once again

'Allow America Be America Again' by Langston Hughes is focused on the American Dream, what it means, and how it is incommunicable to capture.

The poem takes the reader through the perspective of those who accept been put-upon by a system that is supposed to help them. They are the poor, the immigrants, the African Americans, and the Native Americans. They are whatever who have sought the American Dream and found it to exist nonexistent, at least for them.

Through the text, Hughes outlines what it would hateful to actually have the America that people say exists. Information technology will crave 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 Permit America Be America Over again

'Let America Exist America Again' by Langston Hughes is an lxxx-half-dozen line verse form that is divided upwardly into seventeen stanzas of varying lengths. The shortest stanzas are merely 1 line long and the longest stretches to twelve. Usually, 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 example, the starting time three quatrains, four-line stanzas, generally rhyme ABAB. As the poem progresses though the rhyme scheme is less consequent. At that place are several examples of half-rhyme likewise.

Half-rhyme, also known as slant or partial rhyme, is seen through the repetition of assonance or consonance. This means that either a vowel or consonant sound is reused within 1 line or multiple lines of verse. For example, "soil" and "all" in lines xxx-one and thirty-3.

Poetic Techniques in Let America Be America Again

Hughes makes use of several poetic techniques in 'Let America Be America Again'. These include merely are non limited to anaphora, enjambment, ingemination, and metaphor. The first, anaphora, is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of multiple lines, unremarkably in succession. This technique is often used to create emphasis. A listing of phrases, items, or actions may be created through its implementation. This technique is used frequently throughout the verse form. For instance, "Let it be" at the first of lines two and three, likewise every bit "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 audio. For example, "dream the dreamers dreamed" in line half-dozen.

Another important technique commonly used in poetry is enjambment. It occurs when a line is cut off before its natural stopping bespeak. Enjambment forces a reader down to the adjacent line, and the next, speedily. Ane has to motion forrard in order to comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. There are several examples in this poem, including the transitions between lines eleven and twelve, also equally twenty-half dozen and 20-7.

A metaphor is a comparison between two different things that does not use "similar" or "as" is as well present in the text. When using this technique a poet is maxim that 1 thing is some other affair, they aren't just similar. For example, a reader can expect to lines twenty-six and twenty-seven which read "Tangled in that ancient endless chain / Of profit, power, gain, of grab the state!"

Analysis of Let America Be America Again

Lines 1-five

Let America be America once again.

Allow information technology be the dream information technology used to be.

(…)

(America never was America to me.)

In the showtime stanza of 'Allow America Be America Again,' the speaker begins by making use of the line that later on came to be used as the title. He is asking that things become dorsum to the manner they used to be, at least in everyone'due south mind. There was, some indeterminately long time ago, the feeling that anything was possible in America. There was the freedom of the "plain" and the ability to seek a habitation for oneself. But, that dream is irresolute. It is not what it "used to be".

This showtime quatrain is followed by a unmarried line "(America never was America to me). To Hughes, living as a black human being in America, things were ever different.

Lines 6-10

Let America exist the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Permit it be that nifty potent country of love

(…)

(It never was America to me.)

The second quatrain reemphasizes what for some was a real, tangible dream they could strive for. The word "dream" is repeated several times throughout these start stanzas, emphasizing the fact that that is what information technology is—a dream. The poet asks that the "great potent 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 past one above him.

But, every bit a contemporary reader should understand, this is only fiction. That is not the America that exists today, nor did it e'er be. Hughes makes this clear in the follow up of a single line, again in parenthesis, which says "It never was America to me". He knows his ain experience and is not going to ignore information technology.

Lines 11-16

O, permit my state be a state where Liberty

Is crowned with no fake patriotic wreath,

(…)

(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the gratuitous.")

The 3rd quatrain follows the same ABAB rhyme scheme as the previous two. A 2-line stanza, in parenthesis, follows. He dives dorsum into this over the top, arcadian image 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 reach success and happiness. The "opportunity is real" and "life is free". The word "free" is key hither.

The 2 that follow, which provide the reader with insight into the speaker's existent thoughts near America, describe something unlike. He has not experienced that universal "quality" that America is supposedly known for. It is not the "'homeland of the gratuitous"' for him.

Lines 17-24

Say, who are you lot that mumbles in the dark?

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

(…)

And finding simply the same erstwhile stupid plan

Of canis familiaris eat domestic dog, of mighty crush the weak.

The pattern that had been developing in the previous stanzas of 'Let America Be America Again' dissolves when some other ii-line stanza follows. Lines seventeen and eighteen are in italics. This was one in gild to draw increased attention to them every bit a turning point in the verse form. Things are about to modify in how the speaker talks about America.

These lines ask two questions. They are directed at the previous statements that came in parenthesis. The speaker'due south negativity is questioned. These lines advise that the speaker is trying to practice something evil. In his gratis speech, he is trying to disrupt the normal way people see the world.

The following 6 lines provide the vocalism with the first function of an answer. The speaker responds by maxim that he is not simply one person, simply many. He is the collected heed of those that have not been able to get in touch with the American dream. He is the "poor white" that has been "fooled" and taken advantage of by those richer than he. The speaker is also the "Negro bearing slavery's scars" and the "red man," a reference to Native Americans, who were "driven from the land". These, as well as immigrant children, are outlined in this get-go stanza of response.

He has found nothing in the earth to make him believe in the American dream. There is just the "same old stupid plan / Of canis familiaris eat dog" and the stiff destroying those beneath them.

Lines 25-30

I am the swain, total of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient countless concatenation

(…)

Of work the men! Of have the pay!

Of owning everything for ane'south own greed!

The side by side six lines of 'Let America Be America Again' provide additional lines in response to the question. He is representing the "young man" who began full of hope and is now stuck in the spider web of commercialism and the "canis familiaris swallow dog" world.

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

Lines 31-38

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

(…)

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

The side by side four lines of 'Let America Be America Again' also use anaphora in the repetition of "I am" at the beginning of the lines. He explains that he also represents the farmer, worker, Negro, and "people, humble, hungry, mean". The use of alliteration in this line makes the stanza overall experience more rhythmic. One should bounce from word to give-and-take while taking in Hughes's meaning.

He is anybody that has been pushed down and locked out of the American Dream as he outlined it in the first few stanzas. That dream does not be 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

However I'm the i who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old Earth while yet a serf of kings,

(…)

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free."

The next stanza of 'Permit American Be America Again' is the longest of the poem with twelve lines. Information technology speaks on the history of those who have come up to America in search of that dream but have been unable to find it. He "dreamt our basic dream" while even so in the "Former World" where dreams such as that felt impossible. He relates the immigrants who get-go came to America, and the dream they were seeking, to its nonexistence today. They wanted something strong, brave, and true but that does not be at present.

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

Lines 51-61

The free?

Who said the complimentary?  Non me?

Surely non me?  The millions on relief today?

(…)

The millions who take nil for our pay—

Except the dream that's almost expressionless today.

The give-and-take "free" is in question in the following line. It stands by itself, a two-give-and-take line. "The costless?" It draws the reader'southward attention in an acute and precise style.

He follows this up with a series of questions request who would even say the discussion "free?" The millions who are "shot down when we strike?" Or those who "have goose egg for our pay?" There is no "free" to speak of.

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

Lines 62-69

O, allow America be America again—

The country that never has been nevertheless—

(…)

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

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

The opening line of 'Allow America Be America Again' is repeated at the beginning of this stanza. Here, he explores what America is really similar and what he would similar information technology to be. He speaks of himself, "ME" and all those who "made America" what it is. Those who should do good well-nigh are also those who gave their "sweat and blood". America is built on "faith and pain" and it is those who have given the near who should benefit. He hopes that the dream volition return to them, someday.

Lines 70-79

Sure, call me any ugly proper noun yous choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

(…)

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

(…)

The seventieth line of 'Allow America Be America Again' admits that many are going to button back against the speaker. He volition be chosen "ugly name[s]" but nothing 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 accept advantage of the hard-working people mentioned in the previous stanzas. He speaks rousingly to the masses, "We must take dorsum our land again" and brand information technology the America information technology was meant to be.

It might not have been America to this speaker before, or right now, but through these lines, he establishes a goal to make it the America he wants.

Lines 80-86

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 make America again!

In the final lines of 'Let America Exist America Again' the speaker explains that from the dark, "rape and rot of graft, and steal, and lies" there will come something bright and practiced. The people are going to be redeemed and free. The vastness of the state will resemble the vastness and freedom of the people. Those put upon and forgotten volition renew the globe.

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