Analysis of Langston's Poems

In his poem on dreams, Langston portrays the real life by clearly showing the conquencies of dreams that do not come true. He uses imagery such as comparing the dreams that do not come true with a broken-winged bird that despite how hard it tries to fly, it’s impossible. The poem tries to talk about the lost dreams of very many African Americans. The poems express the pains and anguish the African Americans face since they were not entitled to become part of this American dream. According to Langston, a dream deferred could be like a raisin in the sun. A dream deferred according to Langston crust and sugar over like sweet cyrup. In this instance, he refers to how sweet the dreams appear from the onset, they fill the bearer with a lot of good expectations and hope.

The problem comes when the dreams are deferred; the end up bringing discouragement and pessimism and heartbreak. In this comparison he uses imagery of sweet sugar cyrup that one loses while hoping to taste it. Here the individual is left with more discouragement and looses more hopes as he admires tasting the sweet sugar which has already lost its sweetness. An exploded dream always resurfaces in the mind or in the heart which will be realized through royal and trustworthy people. In this case, the pot suggests that a dream can be achieved or realized once the dreamers who are the African Americans are well lead and all conditions made favorable to them. Lastly,the dreams will bigger than the expectations of many.

In the poem “Theme for English B” we realize that the poet still uses some devices to deliver certain messages. For example, he says that “Being me, it will not be white? To suggest that regardless of the ethnic background, both the instructor and he are Americans. In the poem "Mock Orange” the first stanza tone of the voice can be described as anti-romantic since we hear the persona saying all the negatives about relationships. The persona says that he hates the moon and flowers just like he hates sex. The verbs and adjectives have used differently in the poem. The verbs “sealing” and “paralyzing” have been used to describe sex which he compares to a predator insects that stings its partner in the process of doing sex.

The verbs have also been used to represent reproduction (Strand and Boland). Both poems mention incongruity when it comes to education of the people from Africa in America. In the poem “Theme for English B” we get to see the narrator saying that he is only colored student in their class meaning that he was the only African studying in America. The narrator says that there were not so many students from Africa who had attended high institution of learning by then. The poem mentions disadvantages on education the African American face by mentioning the encyclopedia containing wrong information. more so, the two poems use main characters from the same Jim Crow era south and both highlighted institutionalized adverse judgement and the discrimination.