Langston Hughes Landlord

Renting an apartment can be a wonderful experience, though there are quite a few things that can turn this dream into a nightmare. Having a horrible landlord is one example of that. In Langston’s Hughes poem “Ballad of the Landlord”, the speaker of the story is talking to his landlord about the many things wrong with his home. With this poem, Hughes shows the corruption of landlords, and the lack of help received by the speaker from the justice system. Hughes uses tone to express the change in the poem. It starts with the speaker’s tone as rather passive about pointing out the issues with his landlord, by saying, “Don’t you ‘member I told you about it / Way last week?” (3-4). The speaker does not appear to be very angry at the moment, simply curious as to when he should be expecting …show more content…
Though there was undoubtedly a nod toward racial inequality at the ending, there is also the othering of classes. “Um-huh! You talking high and mighty” (17) the speaker says, showing that the landlord begins to speak down to the speaker. Since it is technically illegal for a landlord to not maintain the property that is being rented, it is not a very uncommon story that landlords would rather evict than fix up a house or apartment. In this case, the speaker threatens the landlord, in which the landlord reacts by calling the cops, who arrest the speaker, “TENANT HELD NO BAIL” (32). Hughes’ poem is written in a way that slowly envelops and leads the audience on a story of a tenant suffering from injustice at the hands of a slumlord. Though it would be unfair to say that the system is corrupted, due to the tenant losing his cool, there is definitely suggestion to how little help tenants receive from justice systems; as the tenant was the only one punished. Hughes masterfully uses his poem to demonstrate the horrors of slumlords, as well as how difficult it can be to find help amongst the court