Poetry Paper 2

The Journey Through Life Langston Hughes’ poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” presents an African-American man describing his personal experiences and the history of his race. In many of his works, Langston Hughes uses nature in several dimensions to demonstrate the powerful struggles and burdens of human life. The sweeping imagery, poignant metaphors, and precise powerful symbolism demonstrate the struggles the characters confront, and sometimes their eventual freedom from those struggles. The characters eventually learn …

…the sunset.” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes is a poem that uses metaphors and images of rivers to give the authority of history and experiences of modern African-Americans. The repetition of lines as well as the tone and symbolism all help in showing the freedom of the souls as well as the burden of achieving that freedom and the torturous fight in which they participated in to get where they are today.