Guggenheim Fellows

Metaphor and Symbolism in Langston Hughes’s My People My people is one of Langston Hughes’ poems which is about working class black African American people. In this poem, he compared the beauty of nature to the beauty of his people. My people is a very short poem, built in three stanzas which consist of two lines in each stanza. This poem was written in simple language, therefore, the readers can easily understand what he is trying to convey. I believe, beneath its simple words, this poem depicts the beauty of working class black African American people that go beyond the beauty of physical appearance. In this poem Hughes employs metaphors in comparing the beauty of those different objects; night to faces, stars to eyes, and sun to souls. It cannot be denied that the things which are being compared have symbolic meanings beyond themselves. Furthermore, Hughes also re-uses some words; beautiful and my people, repeatedly. Thus, by examining the metaphors and symbolism used by Hughes in comparing the beauty of nature to his people, the true beauty that is being conveyed by Hughes throughout the poem can be revealed. Besides that, the repetition he exerts in this poem to build the message also can be analyzed. Metaphors and Symbolism As stated before, Hughes compares the beauty of nature to his people, and he chooses three of natural phenomena; night, stars and sun, to be compared. In the first stanza, it is written that “ The night is beautiful (1)… So the faces of my people…

He’s not dead, he’s sleeping forever: Characterization in “A Small, Good Thing” In “A Small, Good Thing”, Raymond Carver describes the events of a small boy, Scotty, getting injured and being hospitalized. His parents, Ann and Howard, then need to internalize the situation each in their own way until they finally accept Scotty’s death after meeting with a baker that has been giving the parents foreboding calls. Carver uses characterization in “A Small, Good Thing” to convey the idea of how Ann…

Overview The documentary Boys of Baraka, produced and directed by Heidi Ewing, and Rachel Grady is about 20 at risk boys from Baltimore, Maryland, who were selected to spend 2 years at a boarding school in Kenya, East Africa. The Baraka school is intended to change the attitude and behavior of their students, and give them specialized instruction to meet their educational needs. By removing them from their negative environment, it allowed them to focus on their education and themselves. The…

the reader into the funeral scene. The reader can hear the casket creaking as it is lifted and the heavy footsteps that walk across the floor. In addition, in her poem, “Because I could not stop for Death,” Dickinson writes, “We paused before a House that seemed / A Swelling of the Ground- / The Roof was scarcely visible- / The Cornice-in the Ground” (Lines 17-20) The imagery in this passage is powerful because Dickinson describes the tombstone in such a way that the reader can almost reach…

Whether you share a cocktail-fuelled pash on the beach with a Norwegian backpacker, a romantic one-on-one sojourn with a French student or a sultry sumba in the arms of a too-hot-to-handle Spanish globe trekker, these are often one-off, fireworky affairs. The Fellow Traveller Crush If you’ve ever met a like-minded traveller on the trip of a lifetime, it’s easy to see why coupling up might seem like a good idea. You’re both single, love experiencing fascinating cultures and exotic locales and…

Julie J.C.H. Ryan’s essay “Student Plagiarism in an Online World” explains how effortless it is for college students to plagiarize their essays and avoid learning through the help of modern technology. On the contrary, undergraduates use the Internet as a means to bolster their education. Savvy technology has helped ease the life of twenty-first century students. The Internet is helpful because it acts as a virtual library for research, enhances relationships between professors and students, and…

“Above all, I believe every child, no matter their ZIP code or their parents’ jobs, deserves access to a quality education.” -Betsy Devos. Waiting for Superman is a film directed by Davis Guggenhiem, and was released in 2010. Waiting for Superman is about the struggle of getting a quality education for children from low-income families. These children featured in the documentary have shown very enthusiastic attitudes towards school, but unfortunately are prevented from doing so because of where…

Michael Moore’s 2010 film, “Waiting for Superman,” illustrated that the ‘lemon dance’ continues to plague districts across the country. ‘The Lemon Dance’ refers to schools swapping their worst performing teachers at the end of the school year with another school’s lemon in hopes that he or she is not quite as bad. Some argue that it is time to throw away the rotten lemons and begin searching for more qualified and/or higher performing teachers. Due process is procedural enough in nature that…

with many problems with no easy solutions. They must continue to challenge those types of problems with creative solution so that the company continues to run smoothly. Mootee also goes on to explain that the creativity in a business is much different than other places, such as an artist. However both challenge the mind equally through the need of thinking critically in order to solve a problem.With this in mind it is impossible to say that creativity is on the path to extinction because…

Whether it is between men and women or different races, we live in a world where inequality exists in every corner. The type of inequality I will be focusing on is not between the sexes or races, but between the rich and the poor. As Plutarch once said, “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” Between the two essays, they provide many similarities and differences in opinion regarding the importance of economic inequality, the access of education…