Poetry Analysis: An Analysis Of My People By Langston Hughes

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Langston Hughes’s poem “My People” is a short poem that gives off a variety of meanings. Hughes’s poem gives the reader a different form of viewing people by emphasizing certain features from his people, although not directly throwing it out there for the reader to grasp right away. Also, interior and outer beauty. When the reader first reads this short poem, they would assume that the narrator is implying that his people are beautiful and that is all, just beautiful. Although, as the reader continues to read the poem thoroughly they will realize that there is more to it then just “beautiful” through out the rest of the poem. The narrators tone in the poem is appreciative and peaceful. The poem contains stanzas, imagery, comparison but …show more content…
Many implications can be drawn out from the poem besides just the beautiful portion of his people. Towards the last stanza of the poem, lines 5-6, the narrator changes the sentence structures around to give his final thoughts about his people. He starts out with the words “beautiful” (line 5) instead of starting with an analogy like he has done so in the prior two stanzas because in a way, he is wrapping the poem up with something more then just a body part from his people. The narrator goes into more depth in the last line of the poem, “beautiful, also, are the souls of my people” (line 6). Now the narrator is ending it with something big, something that goes into deeper feelings and gives the poem more meaning. He ends it with the soul of his people which is not something they can visually see because it is in the interior of a person. Even though the narrator can not see the “soul” (line 6) of his people, he sees it as something more then “stars” (line 3). He compares the “soul” (line 6) to the “sun” (line 5) because the sun is obviously very bright, brighter then the stars in the sky. He makes it out to be that their interior is bigger and brighter then what people see on the outside. If others took the chance to get to know his people, then they would realize that his people have big beautiful souls. That their …show more content…
Each stanza compares one thing to another and highly emphasizes the same word in every stanza “beautiful”. Many things could have been pulled out from this short poem in just those six lines. The word “beautiful” gives the poem a more definition because not only does the word describe the narrators people, but also certain features of his people both inner and outer. Instead of starting the poem from the beginning of the day and ending the poem with the end of the day, the narrator starts the poem from the end of the day and works his way down to the start of the day. Hughes defines beauty in a different form then others would view beauty. He was giving beauty another new meaning instead of the usual meaning, he got into depth towards the end of the poem. Through out the entire poem, each line, gives the reader something to think about. Something to grasp onto and something to go on further

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