Let America Be America Again Let America Be America Again Annotation

'Permit America Be America Over again' was written in 1935 and originally published a year later in Esquire Magazine. Then later in A New Song, a minor collection of poems. The poem was written while Hughes was traveling from New York to encounter his mother in Ohio. Due to recent personal events, reviews, and the health of his female parent, he turned to writing every bit an outlet to express some of his deeper thoughts nearly what it was truly like to live in America. This poem explores the themes of identity, freedom, and equality. It is just every bit applicable to today's earth as it was in the mid-thirties. Readers today will discover several entry points into Hughes' experience of the American Dream.

Summary of Permit America Be America Again

'Let America Be America Again' by Langston Hughes is focused on the American Dream, what it means, and how it is impossible to capture.

The poem takes the reader through the perspective of those who take been put-upon by a system that is supposed to help them. They are the poor, the immigrants, the African Americans, and the Native Americans. They are any who take sought the American Dream and found information technology to be nonexistent, at to the lowest degree for them.

Through the text, Hughes outlines what it would mean to really take the America that people say exists. It will require taking the country back from the "leeches" who feed on the poor and truly achieving freedom.

You can read the full verse form here.

Structure of Let America Exist America Over again

'Allow America Be America Again' past Langston Hughes is an eighty-six line poem that is divided up into seventeen stanzas of varying lengths. The shortest stanzas are only one line long and the longest stretches to twelve. Usually, the poem is quite interesting. The stanzas are inconsistent, some of the lines are in parenthesis and some in italics.

There is non a single rhyme scheme that unites the entire poem, but there are patterns for stanzas and for sections. For example, the commencement three quatrains, four-line stanzas, generally rhyme ABAB. Every bit the poem progresses though the rhyme scheme is less consequent. In that location are several examples of one-half-rhyme as well.

Half-rhyme, also known as slant or partial rhyme, is seen through the repetition of assonance or consonance. This means that either a vowel or consonant sound is reused inside i line or multiple lines of verse. For example, "soil" and "all" in lines thirty-ane and thirty-three.

Poetic Techniques in Let America Be America Over again

Hughes makes use of several poetic techniques in 'Let America Be America Again'. These include simply are not limited to anaphora, enjambment, alliteration, and metaphor. The first, anaphora, is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of multiple lines, usually in succession. This technique is often used to create emphasis. A list of phrases, items, or deportment may exist created through its implementation. This technique is used ofttimes throughout the poem. For instance, "Let information technology be" at the beginning of lines two and three, as well equally "I am the" which starts a total of ten lines.

Ingemination occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear shut together, and begin with the same sound. For example, "dream the dreamers dreamed" in line six.

Some other important technique normally used in poesy is enjambment. It occurs when a line is cut off earlier its natural stopping betoken. Enjambment forces a reader downwardly to the next line, and the side by side, chop-chop. One has to motility frontward in lodge to comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. In that location are several examples in this poem, including the transitions betwixt lines eleven and twelve, as well as twenty-six and 20-seven.

A metaphor is a comparison between two unlike things that does non use "similar" or "as" is also nowadays in the text. When using this technique a poet is saying that one thing is some other thing, they aren't just similar. For example, a reader tin expect to lines twenty-6 and xx-seven which read "Tangled in that ancient endless chain / Of profit, ability, gain, of grab the land!"

Assay of Let America Be America Again

Lines 1-5

Let America be America again.

Allow it be the dream it used to be.

(…)

(America never was America to me.)

In the first stanza of 'Let America Be America Again,' the speaker begins by making use of the line that later came to be used as the title. He is asking that things become back to the way they used to be, at least in anybody'due south mind. There was, some indeterminately long time ago, the feeling that annihilation was possible in America. There was the freedom of the "patently" and the ability to seek a home for oneself. But, that dream is changing. Information technology is not what it "used to exist".

This kickoff quatrain is followed past a single line "(America never was America to me). To Hughes, living as a black man in America, things were always unlike.

Lines 6-10

Allow America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let information technology be that great strong land of dear

(…)

(It never was America to me.)

The 2d quatrain reemphasizes what for some was a real, tangible dream they could strive for. The word "dream" is repeated several times throughout these get-go stanzas, emphasizing the fact that that is what it is—a dream. The poet asks that the "great strong country of love" return. It is, in this description, an ideal place where tyranny has no foothold. Never, in this idealized version, was a human crushed past 1 above him.

But, every bit a contemporary reader should understand, this is merely fiction. That is not the America that exists today, nor did it always exist. Hughes makes this clear in the follow up of a single line, again in parenthesis, which says "It never was America to me". He knows his ain experience and is not going to ignore it.

Lines 11-16

O, permit my country exist a land where Freedom

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

(…)

(At that place's never been equality for me,

Nor liberty in this "homeland of the free.")

The third quatrain follows the same ABAB rhyme scheme as the previous two. A two-line stanza, in parenthesis, follows. He dives back into this over the meridian, idealized prototype of America. It is, in the stories, songs, and movies, a "state where Liberty / Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath". Everything is perfect there and each person tin can attain success and happiness. The "opportunity is real" and "life is free". The give-and-take "free" is key hither.

The 2 that follow, which provide the reader with insight into the speaker's existent thoughts near America, describe something different. He has not experienced that universal "quality" that America is supposedly known for. It is non the "'homeland of the free"' for him.

Lines 17-24

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

(…)

And finding merely the same old stupid program

Of canis familiaris consume dog, of mighty crush the weak.

The pattern that had been developing in the previous stanzas of 'Allow America Be America Again' dissolves when another two-line stanza follows. Lines seventeen and xviii are in italics. This was one in order to draw increased attention to them as a turning point in the poem. Things are most to modify in how the speaker talks about America.

These lines ask two questions. They are directed at the previous statements that came in parenthesis. The speaker's negativity is questioned. These lines advise that the speaker is trying to do something evil. In his gratis oral communication, he is trying to disrupt the normal way people encounter the world.

The following six lines provide the vocalization with the first part of an reply. The speaker responds past saying that he is not just one person, but many. He is the nerveless mind of those that have not been able to make it touch with the American dream. He is the "poor white" that has been "fooled" and taken advantage of by those richer than he. The speaker is also the "Negro bearing slavery'due south scars" and the "red man," a reference to Native Americans, who were "driven from the state". These, too equally immigrant children, are outlined in this offset stanza of response.

He has plant nothing in the world to make him believe in the American dream. There is just the "same old stupid plan / Of dog eat canis familiaris" and the strong destroying those beneath them.

Lines 25-30

I am the beau, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

(…)

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for ane's ain greed!

The side by side six lines of 'Let America Be America Again' provide additional lines in response to the question. He is representing the "young man" who began full of promise and is now stuck in the web of capitalism and the "dog eat dog" globe.

Hughes uses anaphora in these lines to emphasize what it takes to move through the globe while seeking success. Ane has to grab "turn a profit, ability". They accept to "grab the gold" and "grab the ways of satisfying need". It is take, accept, take.

Lines 31-38

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

(…)

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

The next four lines of 'Let America Be America Once more' also use anaphora in the repetition of "I am" at the beginning of the lines. He explains that he also represents the farmer, worker, Negro, and "people, apprehensive, hungry, hateful". The use of ingemination in this line makes the stanza overall feel more rhythmic. One should bounciness from word to word while taking in Hughes's meaning.

He is everyone that has been pushed downwards and locked out of the American Dream equally he outlined it in the first few stanzas. That dream does not exist for him. He refers to them as men and women who "never got ahead". He is the "poorest worker bartered" by employers, "through the years".

Lines 39-50

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the One-time Earth while yet a serf of kings,

(…)

And torn from Blackness Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free."

The adjacent stanza of 'Allow American Be America Again' is the longest of the poem with twelve lines. It speaks on the history of those who accept come to America in search of that dream simply have been unable to discover it. He "dreamt our basic dream" while notwithstanding in the "Old World" where dreams such as that felt impossible. He relates the immigrants who offset came to America, and the dream they were seeking, to its nonexistence today. They wanted something strong, brave, and truthful but that does not be now.

He casts himself equally "the man who staled those early seas" looking for a new home. He is the Irishman, the Pole, the Englishman, he is the African "torn from Black Africa's strand". All are in America now wanting to build a life.

Lines 51-61

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?

Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?

(…)

The millions who have aught for our pay—

Except the dream that's about dead today.

The word "costless" is in question in the following line. Information technology stands by itself, a ii-give-and-take line. "The free?" It draws the reader's attention in an acute and precise manner.

He follows this up with a series of questions asking who would even say the word "gratis?" The millions who are "shot down when we strike?" Or those who "have nothing for our pay?" There is no "free" to speak of.

All that'southward left for any of those people that Hughes has mentioned is the sliver of the dream that's "nearly dead today".

Lines 62-69

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

(…)

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the pelting,

Must bring back our mighty dream once again.

The opening line of 'Let America Be America Again' is repeated at the beginning of this stanza. Here, he explores what America is actually like and what he would similar information technology to be. He speaks of himself, "ME" and all those who "made America" what it is. Those who should benefit virtually are also those who gave their "sweat and claret". America is built on "religion and hurting" and it is those who have given the virtually who should benefit. He hopes that the dream will return to them, someday.

Lines lxx-79

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

(…)

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

(…)

The seventieth line of 'Permit America Exist America Over again' admits that many are going to push button back against the speaker. He will exist chosen "ugly proper noun[south]" but goose egg is going to stop him from pursuing the freedom he wants. It is a brave and honorable thing to pursue freedom and he won't be knocked downwardly by the "leeches". These are the men and women who take advantage of the difficult-working people mentioned in the previous stanzas. He speaks rousingly to the masses, "We must accept back our land again" and make information technology the America it was meant to exist.

It might not have been America to this speaker before, or right at present, only through these lines, he establishes a goal to brand information technology the America he wants.

Lines lxxx-86

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

(…)

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America over again!

In the concluding lines of 'Permit America Be America Again' the speaker explains that from the dark, "rape and rot of graft, and steal, and lies" there volition come something bright and skilful. The people are going to exist redeemed and free. The vastness of the country will resemble the vastness and freedom of the people. Those put upon and forgotten will renew the world.

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Source: https://poemanalysis.com/langston-hughes/let-america-be-america-again/

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