In his poem he expresses the pain that African Americans have endured and how they have to wear a mask to disguise this pain in hopes to have equal rights someday. Morgan writes, “ To be financially successful while maintaining his political and aesthetic stance, Dunbar had to create literary strategies capable of critiquing the social, political, economic, and cultural problems facing African Americans that, at the same time, would not explicitly confront white readers’ internalized beliefs regarding blacks,” (7). I agree with Morgan, Dunbar did have to think creatively to disguise his true message of pain without offending or upsetting white Americans. He wrote these poems describing the pain with the hopes that someday whites and blacks would both be equal and no longer need to wear the mask to disguise the…
Poetry is utilized as way for people to express their feeling in a different way. There is more to it than rhythm schemes and different tones. African Americans have utilized poetry as voice because they never had one during slavery and segregation era. The Angles of Ascent: an anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry has showed their respect for the many poets that are recognized within this anthology.…
Instead of using the neutral word “scent,” or the negative word “smell,” the poet employs “perfume” because of its positive connotation of a sweet aroma. However, the perfume doesn’t just “leave” the flower; it “steals,” which connotes moving secretly, or invisibly, perhaps creating an image of captive slaves making their escape to freedom. To add, Dunbar’s words take on a deeper meaning that allows him to incorporate a hidden theme that conveys the struggle of African Americans in a nation build on the foundation of freedom. In A Voice That Challenged a Nation, that author used textual text elements with few literary devices to unfold a series of events or ideas, including the order in which the points are introduced and developed. For example by using phrases such as “she had never visited the Deep South before, and on this trip, for the first time, she experienced the strict "Jim Crow" laws that enforced racial segregation throughout the South.”…
When reading a poem, depending on the author and the genre, it becomes important to consider the social perspective of the poem along with the archetypal perspective. When reading from a social perspective, it is important to make connections to the events going on in correlation for when the poem was written or set. When reading from an archetypal perspective, it is critical to take note of the symbols which express universal human longings. In the poems The Explorer by Gwendolyn Brooks and Frederick Douglass by Robert Hayden, each express social perspective and archetypal perspective. Concerning social perspective, The Explorer by Gwendolyn Brooks greatly reflects the struggles of its time.…
Dunbar utilizes symbolism to explain that oppression by society causes a desire for freedom. During the time these poems…
Back in the 1800s and 1900s, the African Americans were considered a lower class race, and treated as such. Many of these people, as well as others who found this unfair, fought for the equal rights to freedom and success for the African Americans. Peaceful protesting was a huge way that people thought would help achieve the equality that was being fought for. One way that people fought peacefully was in writing, commonly poetry, and the poetic devices the authors used. The two poems "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar and "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou show similarities in their themes of African American struggles to success during this time period which is shown through the symbols, imagery, and how the titles defy the readers expectations of the poem.…
Dunbar’s poems show both sides of black lives, which include the joy and the sorrow (Laryea 11). Another way Dunbar had shown the way African Americans were treated differently was by the dialect in his poems; he used dialect to show the way white people used to view slaves and other black people. The dialect consists of incorrect spelling and usage (Dempsey). Many people did not like the way Dunbar wrote. They thought his grammar was poor and called his writings “broken tongue” (Williams).…
Henry Louis Gates Jr, an African American literature scholar, asserts, “No poet in the tradition was more crucial in the shaping of a distinct African- American poetic diction or voice than he, [Paul Laurence Dunbar]” (68). Dunbar’s ability to communicate the struggles of America through the black experience, with the assistance of Negro dialect, elevated him to become one of the most influential African American poets of his time. His success with written language allows today’s readers to experience and obtain knowledge about the life of an African American before and after the Civil War. The life and literature of Dunbar continue to galvanize students, educators, and critics today. Dunbar’s ancestral connection with slavery and interactions…
In his poem he is trying to show how African Americans want to fit in…
The poems also act as a symbol of art in the American region and all over the world. These poems are not only an escape from African-American identity, but they also demonstrate the demand for African Americans to be set free. Being of color leaves the African Americans at the disposal of the white people, who are not fond of the idea of Africans sharing the same privileges with them? Americans believe that the act of the blacks invading their country and settling down is enough and so getting more freedom will be like a blow on their eyes (Huston,…
In Paul Laurence Dunbar 's poem “We Wear The Mask” we are exposed to the turbulent times and the atrocities given to the African American people from the hands of the whites. They had grown so accustomed to the mistreatment and conditions of their world they began to cover up their misfortunes with mask of happiness and satisfaction. This method of dealing with there slavery is the major theme we see throughout Dunbar’s poem. Dunbar’s poem expresses the hidden pain and suffering that African American slaves had to deal with. The African American slaves hid all of their pain and frustration from their white owners.…
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 father of the Black Arts Movement is Amiri Baraka. He got this name because he wrote so many essays, poems, and plays about racial issues in Harlem. In the time there was a lot of racial injustice of African Americans civil rights. Baraka’s most known piece that he has written is his poem called “Black Art.” His works such as “Black Art” and many others have been centered around the lack of civil rights for black people.…
Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die” is a bold poem written during an eventful time for civil rights history, the Harlem Renaissance. During the Harlem Renaissance the African American community endured extreme racism and degradation. McKay wrote this poem with the intent to display his feelings as an immigrant who moved to America for a better life but instead was thrown into a situation where he was treated like an animal instead of a person. He chose to write this poem in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet, which ironically is a more common form for the writing of love poems and “if we must die” is nothing of the sort.…
Delle Rose S. Garcia. 12-62172 Poem: Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson I. Analysis Line 1 - “down town” means busy or active place where the people work and stay. We can depict that Richard Cory is a busy and hard working man. Line 2 - by using the pronoun “We”, it implied that the persona of this poem belong to the lower class.…