Preview

A Critical Analysis Of Countee Cullen's Poem

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
619 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Critical Analysis Of Countee Cullen's Poem
Countee Cullen is a modernist writer with a very interesting poem about a summer and fall in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. He writes about being eight years old and smiling at a white boy about his age but he sticks his tongue out and calls him a very derogatory name. Such is the way of the world today still. Even the reverse of the situation is true. He goes on to mention that even though he was there for about seven months, that is the only thing he can remember because it was traumatic at his young age and the gateway or doorway to the way he would be treated for the rest of his life by the other, major race in the country where he lives. Times in this country were hard for everyone, but especially hard for those people of the minority races.

Being a minority is a very difficult task anywhere but it becomes an even more difficult task for a person who lives in a country that is going into a depression and wants someone to blame. There is going to be a lot of
…show more content…
When you face that much hate and anger when you haven’t even done anything, it is hard to understand where your place in the world is. His poetry most likely provided an outlet. The Harlem Renaissance was a period when authors and artists of all types could really express themselves and connect with the other people who they lived with or around. These people, these artists became huge figures in the Harlem community because their work had such an important impact on the people who were struggling to make it through the time period. People have a tendency to idolize people who have an impact on their life. Human nature gives us the need to be like others before us who have done great things in our own eyes, maybe the rest of the world or say the family agrees with the chosen hero, but it is a personal thing. The people of Harlem all had similar tastes in music and literature during that

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    How does the poetry of Langston Hughes, “I, Too,” “Harlem,” and “A Song to a Negro…

    • 684 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The dehumanizing oppression of African Americans in the southern states of America during the first half of the 20th century is regarded as one of the saddest chapters in the history of the nation. They were denied their Human and Civil Rights to a most severe degree, including the regulation of the very basic right of suffrage. African Americans were also denied equality in the classroom, stemming their ability to develop as a race. Ruth touches on this subject on various lines such as being “not so educated” and “riding the bus”. Ruth does a magnificent job of using poetry to describe this social injustice.…

    • 337 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Chapter 1 of the second paragraph of W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois uses a descriptive style of writing to create a sense of deep spiritual connection with his reader. DuBois incorporated numerous vivid phrases, such as “rollicking boyhood” and “wee wooden schoolhouse” to deliver the reader into the very place and time of an unforgettable event that happened when he was a young child. This event sets the tone of his book as it gives the reader an explanation for the motives behind every decision he made in his lifetime. The words “vast veil” becomes a powerful way to grasp the very essence of DuBois’s feelings toward white people. In a unique application of “the blue sky”, DuBois constructs a vibrant picture of joyful…

    • 164 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Langston Hughes was considered one of the principal and prominent voices of Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s and 1930s. His poetry encompasses heterogeneity of subject matters and motifs concerning working African-Americans who were excluded and deprived of power. His choice of theme was accentuated and manifested through the convergence of African-American vernacular and blues forms. My attempt is to analyze the implications of the most significant poems by first introducing the author, examining the relevance of the poems and then, contrast them with Richard Wright’s antagonistic perspective.…

    • 524 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Langston Hughes was a poet whose poems helped many African Americans. Hughes had achieved fame, was a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, has written over 50 poems, and had a tragic death. He had a long life and wanted to help his fellow African Americans with their life struggles.…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Langston Hughes was a predominant figure during the Harlem Renaissance. In Joplin, Missouri on February 1st of 1902, James Mercer Langston Hughes was born. His mother and father had separated, so the majority of his early life was spent with his Grandmother until she died. Langston’s passion for poetry began when he and his mother moved to Cleveland, Ohio. He would occasionally send in pieces of his poetry to many magazines, including his school’s magazine. After graduating from high school, Langston would then study at Columbia University for 1 year and would study poetry in many places such as Mexico and Paris. Through his poetry, Mr. Hughes wanted to highlight the black communities concerns and challenges that they faced during…

    • 210 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    This short poem is one of Hughes’s most famous works; it is likely the most common Langston Hughes poem taught in American schools. Hughes wrote "Harlem" in 1951, and it addresses one of his most common themes like the limitations of the American Dream for African Americans. The poem has eleven short lines in four stanzas, and all but one line are questions.In the early 1950s, America was still racially segregated. African Americans were saddled with the legacy of slavery, which essentially rendered them second-class citizens in the eyes of the law, particularly in the South.Hughes was intimately aware of the challenges he faced as a black man in America, and the tone of his work reflects his complicated experience. He can come across as sympathetic, enraged, and hopeful. Hughes titled this poem “Harlem” after the New York neighborhood that became the center of the Harlem Renaissance, a major creative explosion in music, literature, and art that occurred during the 1910s and 1920s. Many African American families saw Harlem as a sanctuary from the frequent discrimination they faced in other parts of the country. Unfortunately, Harlem’s glamour faded at the beginning of the 1930s when the Great Depression set in that left many of the African American families who had flourished in Harlem…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    He was a very important person in the Harlem Renaissance because of his literary works helped shape American literature and politics. He displayed a strong racial pride and represented African Americans in an honorable way. Growing up in New York, Hughes had many influences. He was exposed to many different things and many talented people through his life journey. His love of jazz and the blues were both influential to the lyrical content in his poetry. Growing up he was taught about black pride and being proud of whom he was, but his family took that away from him. His grandmother taught him about being proud of the person he was, but it was his father who would demean him and show him the backlash from being a black…

    • 2135 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Racism In Rankine

    • 293 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The term microaggression links with the poem, since each text exemplifies the microaggressions the author, Rankine, has experienced and multiple people have also gone through. Although the comments or the insinuation may seem harmless to some, it contains a negative connotation that reinforces stereotypes and discriminates…

    • 293 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Harlem Renaissance was a time of art and entertainment. It was a lively time were many artists, writers, musicians, and poets got the opportunity to share their work with a willing audience. It was a time period that gave African Americans a voice, and many talented writers emerged that might have remained silent if it hadn’t been for the Harlem Renaissance. Zora Neal Hurston and James Weldon Johnson were among these writers, publishing powerful novels that allowed African Americans to receive more respect and acknowledgement. The Harlem Renaissance allowed African American writers to share their work with the world in a great artistic movement where they could freely express themselves, as well as bring pride and inspiration to African…

    • 127 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    I believe it is first important to have an understanding of the period of time known as the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a time period that begin in the 1920s [when] black intellectuals of Harlem had a ‘reawakening’ of culture that had been dormant for generations (Huggins 3). It was a time where men and women of African descent aimed to form a high culture of their own in order to bridge the gap between differing races and create a world of literature free of prejudice (Huggins 5). This was also a time for African Americans to form an identity for their race that would yield power and put rest to the beliefs that African…

    • 2849 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    A group of people who had at one point held no power and position in society were now thriving in the nation, as they spread their culture and ideas. It was the start of an era known as the Harlem Renaissance. This was a more than a literary movement, it was a cultural movement based on pride in the Africa-American life. They were demanded civil and political rights (Stewart). The Harlem Renaissance changed the way African Americans were viewed by society. It, “changes the image of the African-American from rural, undereducated peasants to one of urban, cosmopolitan sophistication”. This era expanded from the early 1920s to the mid 1930s (Wikipedia). It generated great pride in the people by expressing their ideas though the fine arts. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that helped the African-American people defined who they were, and what they believed in by leaving an impact on a society that was to change.…

    • 1111 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Harlem Renaissance was a period where African American’s had thrived on emotion and discrimination; the many subjects their poems/stories was about. It was a period in time also that caused a lot of pain and suffering. One writer who had dealt with pain and suffering was Ralph Ellison. Ellison’s attitude toward the opportunities African Americans get is extremely troublesome and disheartening. He felt that because of their skin color they were being discriminated, they would have to work harder to earn equal opportunities whereas whites earned it quickly, and they had to act a certain way otherwise duality became the outcome.…

    • 597 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Langston Hughes, which I am about to go into now, was another writer of the Harlem Renaissance, which of whom I admire very much and consider an icon in history, he is known and widely remembered for his works during the movement of racial equality throughout America. I can say that Langston greatly praised his work with dedication and portrayed his own experiences of being an actual African-American.…

    • 1310 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Langston Hughes

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Langston Hughes was one of the most significant writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes' rare style of writing was encouraged by his life experiences in New York City's Harlem, which was a predominately African American neighborhood. His legendary works contributed to American literature and politics. Hughes had such a strong sense of racial pride. Through his poetry and various works he promoted equality; he was not a fan of racism and injustice just like many African Americans.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays