What Is The Theme Of The Poem Song For A Dark Girl By Langston Hughes

This essay will examine the use of poetry in expressing a poet’s ideology, how this is demonstrated in their work and the poet’s methods of communicating their world views to a reader. The work of Langston Hughes reflected the lives of the African Americans around him during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, and also the history that they all shared in Africa. The Harlem Renaissance was a time of revival for traditional African culture and a push for racial equality across in the community of Harlem, a mostly black neighborhood in New York City. The time was filled with musical invention and African traditions reborn. The new sounds of jazz and the blues filled the air and African Americans celebrated the obstacles they had overcome and rallied …show more content…
It is largely the contrast between the vulnerable innocence of the girl in the poem and the wicked power of the lynch mob that makes the poem so poignant. The reader get an image of the brutality in the lover's death he's been beaten up and is hanging high in the air showing that the mob who put him there is ruthless and shameless . The use of the word ‘Dixie’ indicates that the setting of the poem is in South America. Dixie was a famous song during the 19th century sung to celebrate the glory of the South. Therefore, using this in the introduction part of the poem sets the impression that the poem setting was in the South. The irony in the use of the song is that whites sang it and it demeaned and patronized the African Americans. Therefore, the use of the song aims at portraying the racial discrimination and the mistreatment of the black Americans. Even though, this is not implicitly manifest, some of the stanzas portray the harsh treatment of the black Americans by the whites. Furthermore, the repetition of the stanza and Dixie makes the poem more ironic. Our speaker is so upset by his death that she wonders, what's the use of praying to a white Jesus? This “white Lord Jesus” accepts the lynching, and does not condemn it despite it being a grave sin. Not only is the physical world the young lover in wrought with oppression, but so is the spiritual world. By cutting off one of the only avenues for solace, this makes it nearly impossible to escape the horrors of racial prejudice anywhere The rhythm of Hughes’ poem “Song for a Dark Girl” incorporates jazz poetry and reads like a ritualistic chant. By using lyrics from “Dixie” within this chant-like-poem, Hughes juxtaposes the use of lynching as established entertainment from the perspective of the white community and as a paralyzing form of control from the viewpoint of blacks. This juxtaposition ultimately serves to express Hughes’ view on the lack of racial equality in the