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Langston Hughes wrote many narrative poems. He was notorious for writing poems about real life issues. His poems tend to reflect his life experiences such as unfairness to African-Americans during the 1940 's- 1960 's. Hughes narrative poems showed the true cruelty shown to Blacks, this especially evident in his life, Mule Bone, and controversy. Langston Hughes' life greatly affected his poetry and writing. "Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. As a young man he held a variety of jobs - teacher, ranch hand, farmer, seaman, and nightclub cook among other.
He drew on all this experiences and above all, on the experience of being a black man in America to create his great body of literary. " (Prentice Hall Literature 624) Langston Hughes' many jobs deeply affected his literature by making it more realistic. It also helped him to expand his thoughts and mind as a writer. "As a young child Langston's parents split and he was left to be raised by his grandmother. " (Grolier) This deeply affected his narrative writing by allowing him to express pain and anger fluently through his emotionally expressed work. This is important because emotion is important in narrative writing because it tells the story more dramatically. Langston greatly admired his grandmother and credits her for some of his greatest works of literature.
Langston's life and poetry are completing each other. Langston's life is very influential in his writing because it added a self-image of himself in his work. Langston Hughes played an important and influential part in his narrative poetry. Langston Hughes' writing also reflected his life, such as in Mule Bone. " I been to hell, Jack tole' him. "Tell us how it is down there Jack " Well he says just like here you cain't git to de fire for de preachers. " (Hughes 110) What Hughes was commenting was that everyone including the preachers or societal leader during the time was engaging in bad behavior and that their intentions were of going to hell. Even the preachers during the time were engaging in sin (which everyone does) and sort of ironic, way encouraged other people to engage in sin thus the quote "I been to hell" (Hughes 110).
On the flipside of the whole thing the character commence to say " Its just like it is here... " (Hughes 110). What does this mean you may ask? This means the streets of Harlem were hell. Just think Harlem in the early 1930 's, it was poor, every place impoverished due to the stock market crash. Harlem had always been a poor city but in the 1930 's it was at it all time low.
Harlem in 1930 's was all about anything for money. People would sell drugs for money. People would sell violence for money, this meaning hitmen. People would sell sex for money. Even the famous Civil Rights leader Malcolm X once said "I sold everything from crack to shoe laces out of the pockets of my torn trench coat. " (X 26) Hustling to get money became a way of life. And as we know "Money is the root of all evil. " So what he meant was that Harlem was extremely bad and reminiscent of hell.
In Harlem, the devil was in the money, in all of the drugs, and in all of the sex. This made an impact on Hughes' life. He wanted to change all of this madness and he fought not with physical force but with his pen and paper. He found his poetry as his way out of "Harlem's Hell" and into the path of success. With all of Langston Hughes' narrative writing came much controversy. "Both of you niggers can git yo' hat on yo' head and git on down de road.
I got a good job and plenty of men begin' for yo' chance. " (Hughes 205) This is from the poem Mule Bone, written by Langston as he expresses injustice from a white man who did not want to publish his work. When Hughes refused to rewrite his work he was immediately excused from the office. After this Hughes saw to it that his poem made big. "To use to a term from the professional folklorist, Hughes was attempting to dramatize the "oral-aural worldview" of a black community that contrasts with the typographic- chirographic structure of white middle class thought " (Wired 185) What this means is that in Hughes' writing he tried to compare or make an irony of the black community to that of the white middle class standings. Many people, especially whites, did not appreciate this from Hughes. "We don't want to be pared' to dem' nigger folk, " said Mary Clemson of Hughes comparison. Hughes did not use this reason as a reason to stop but as a reason to excel. It was plain to see in Hughes mind that whites did not want to be compared to blacks, but on the flipside being compared to whites was a light of encouragement and hope for the black communities of the world, especially Harlem.
So as you can tell all the controversy did not stop Hughes and some of his created controversy helped other people. Langston Hughes was a tremendous narrative poet. His poems and words helped to reshape the community of Harlem and the nation in its time of need. His life, his words, and controversy helped to make him a great narrative writer. email if works cited list is needed. Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on White Middle Class Langston Hughes
