Langston Hughes's Life Is Fine

Poetry is a timeless art form. Many of the poems used today by teachers are from hundreds of years ago. It, also, transcends into the culture today from a traditional written form to the more modern slam poetry or spoken word. Poets use lines, stanzas, pattern, rhyme scheme, and many literary tools to send a message to their readers. In “Life is Fine” Langston Hughes uses his past experiences, accompanied with rhyme scheme to form a poem about a suicidal man, using various literary devices, giving the reader an inside look at a struggling man’s fight to live.
James Mercer Langston Hughes, better known as Langston Hughes, was born on February 1, 2016 in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was very young, and he went to live with …show more content…
The only thing keeping him from finishing his actions in his wish to die is his fear of the cold and of heights. He jumps into a cold river without thinking about it, he lets himself sink, and then he begins to yell for help. He even says that he could have died but that it was so cold that he could not. At one point he goes to the top of the building and thinks about jumping, he thinks about his baby, thinks about jumping one more time, and then decides not to because it is so high up. The author writes that the narrator is just assuming to go on living, because he was born to live. He states that he will keep on living and crying, but that he will not decide to die again. The poem takes a turn here, and the narrator “…is fine! Fine as wine! Life is Fine!” …show more content…
The narrator is suicidal, and contemplates taking their life. The poet writes “I thought about my baby / And I thought I would jump down” (12-13) which leads the reader to think that someone of significance is causing the narrator some type of turmoil in the character’s life. Hughes does not specify who the narrator’s baby is, or what they have done. One interpretation is that the narrator’s boyfriend or girlfriend has died, and this leads the narrator to not want to live anymore. This theory, also, accounts for the “Fine as Wine!” (27) comment that the narrator is depending on alcohol. At the end of the poem the last two stanzas the poem changes. The narrator says that “… since I’m still here livin’, / I guess I will live on. / I could’ve died for love – / but for livin’ I was born” (19-22) this shows the theme that the narrator lost a loved one. Since the narrator was for for living they decided to keep going. To keep fighting for life. Hughes, also, writes “Though you may hear me holler, / and you may see me cry – / I’ll be dogged, sweet baby, / if you gonna see me die” (23-26), the author is trying to show the reader that the narrator is going to still struggle. Even though the narrator has chosen life they understand this isn’t the end of a struggle, but rather the beginning of an understanding that death is no longer the goal, but life