Etheridge Knight’s poem “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” depicts a disturbing era in American history and unjust system for prisoners in a time where discrimination ran deep. The mid 1900’s was the time when Black artists sought a voice. This quest, combined with the prison rights movement, focused on civil rights and an end to unethical practices. Prison laws and conditions in American were a disaster and the people needed a voice to reveal the monstrosities that were occurring, and the best way do so was from the “inside” out. As a convict himself, Knight witnessed the horrors that were happening and through his poem, demonstrates the nature that makes humans capable of treating others in such a villainous
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Prisons were treated like trash cans and the prisoners were the trash that lied inside of that trashcan, in the poem Hard Rock was the only sense of pride that remained inside of the trashcan and the prisoners valued him greatly. Only to make Hard Rock become the voice of Knight’s opinion, he would utilize Hard Rock to “come to symbolize the Black man inside and outside prison walls” which he felt were being oppressed to such a degree that it was degrading to the black community as a whole (Hill). This relates the story of Hard Rock to his personal life for he knew that no matter how strong of a force one can be in a community, that there will always be someone bigger to stop one in their tracks and suppress their rebellious …show more content…
The fact that Hard Rock was a black man in a prison, and being treated so poorly how he was alludes to the African American’s dark past of being slaves and how that discrimination was still present during this time period for many African American’s had to still deal with such harsh conditions. In this poem Knight demonstrates the prejudice that still was in occurrence at the time and that how the black prisoners were being treated, closely resembled that of a slave’s life and he “stresses the destruction of black manhood” in the poem to suggest that these slave like behaviors were still in circulation at prisons (Seelow). This creates the idea that Hard Rock was the free man who was the African that was at once free and then taken from his homeland and turned into a slave in which horrible things were done to him merely for the benefit of the white man. Which would ultimately suggest the deeper meaning in the poem to be a representation for slavery overall as the reader sees the free man who was Hard Rock only to be turned into a slave by the government just as the free African was taken from their home to serve some purpose for the government. So this poem would emphasize the idea that Knight felt that ever since those early dark days in which black people were
Prisons were treated like trash cans and the prisoners were the trash that lied inside of that trashcan, in the poem Hard Rock was the only sense of pride that remained inside of the trashcan and the prisoners valued him greatly. Only to make Hard Rock become the voice of Knight’s opinion, he would utilize Hard Rock to “come to symbolize the Black man inside and outside prison walls” which he felt were being oppressed to such a degree that it was degrading to the black community as a whole (Hill). This relates the story of Hard Rock to his personal life for he knew that no matter how strong of a force one can be in a community, that there will always be someone bigger to stop one in their tracks and suppress their rebellious …show more content…
The fact that Hard Rock was a black man in a prison, and being treated so poorly how he was alludes to the African American’s dark past of being slaves and how that discrimination was still present during this time period for many African American’s had to still deal with such harsh conditions. In this poem Knight demonstrates the prejudice that still was in occurrence at the time and that how the black prisoners were being treated, closely resembled that of a slave’s life and he “stresses the destruction of black manhood” in the poem to suggest that these slave like behaviors were still in circulation at prisons (Seelow). This creates the idea that Hard Rock was the free man who was the African that was at once free and then taken from his homeland and turned into a slave in which horrible things were done to him merely for the benefit of the white man. Which would ultimately suggest the deeper meaning in the poem to be a representation for slavery overall as the reader sees the free man who was Hard Rock only to be turned into a slave by the government just as the free African was taken from their home to serve some purpose for the government. So this poem would emphasize the idea that Knight felt that ever since those early dark days in which black people were