Two Exaples of Figurative Language in the Poem Let America Be America Again

Let America Be America Again | Context

The Harlem Renaissance

During the period called the Harlem Renaissance (1918–1937), African Americans made enormous contributions in art, literature, music, and drama. Rooted in Harlem, New York City, the movement eventually included an international community of talented black artists whose work focused on realistic portrayal of black life. For the first time, African American stories were told by African Americans themselves, not by white people. Honest depictions of life in black families and neighborhoods chipped away at racial stereotypes. This boosted the confidence and pride of those who had until recently viewed themselves only through a lens of white prejudice and discrimination.

Langston Hughes was one of the most popular writers to emerge during the Harlem Renaissance. He published poetry in The Crisis and Opportunity, two literary journals for black audiences, throughout the 1920s. Publication of his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues (1926), was followed by a well-regarded essay in The Nation and his first novel Not Without Laughter (1930). By 1930, he had earned the title of "the bard of Harlem." But his success stalled after the onset of the Great Depression. The Harlem Renaissance was fading, as was interest in Hughes's work. By the time he wrote "Let America Be America Again" in 1935, he was once more a struggling writer just trying to get published. His feelings of disenfranchisement from American society and his desire for a better, more prosperous life are evident in the poem's content and tone.

The Great Depression

Lasting nearly a decade, the Great Depression (1929–39) was the longest and most severe economic downswing of the 20th century. The downturn began with the crumbling of the United States stock market in 1929. An ongoing U.S. drought, falling food prices, and a lack of faith in the banking establishment compounded the problem, and the Great Depression soon became a worldwide phenomenon. At home, millions of Americans lost their jobs as farmland dried up and businesses closed. In 1929, before the Great Depression hit, the U.S. unemployment rate was 3.14 percent. That number ballooned to 24.75 percent in 1933. Farmers, merchants, and businessmen alike were rendered penniless.

The effects of the Great Depression reached all races, ethnicities, and genders, but historians agree African Americans suffered the most of any group. By 1932 about half of African Americans were unemployed. In some parts of the country, white people insisted employed black people be replaced by unemployed whites. Tensions rose as race relations soured. Although President Franklin Roosevelt relied on the advice of several African American advisors, some of the housing and employment relief projects created as part of his New Deal program to help the economy actively discriminated against black citizens. Government-sponsored development of suburban communities in the mid-1930s was meant for white middle-class and lower-middle-class families. African Americans and other minorities were not welcome. Most were pushed into urban housing projects in less prosperous areas. Those who did try to secure home loans were often rejected because of the color of their skin. As whites fled the cities, so did good jobs, which left minorities with even fewer opportunities for financial and social success.

Immigrants, particularly those from Mexico, also faced hostility and discrimination from white people who coveted their jobs. Many Mexican immigrants were farm workers and thus had great difficulty finding work in the drought-riddled fields. Some Mexicans and Mexican Americans accepted free train rides back to Mexico, but thousands more were threatened or tricked into leaving or were deported. Those who remained traveled back and forth across the country in search of work.

Hughes wrote "Let America Be America Again" while riding on a train from New York City to Cleveland, Ohio, in October 1935. By then the worst of the Great Depression had passed, but nearly 20 percent of American citizens were still unemployed. As his train chugged across the rural and urban Northeast, Hughes would have seen barren fields, dilapidated residential and business areas, and makeshift homeless villages called Hoovervilles. Hoovervilles were bitingly named after President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), who was in office at the beginning of the Great Depression. These settlements were populated by struggling whites, immigrants, Native Americans, and African Americans who had lost everything. This is the America of which Hughes writes in "Let America Be America Again"—one where the American dream of opportunity and prosperity has died.

The American Dream

The American dream is the idealized notion that all people who live in the United States enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities to be happy and to become successful. This concept has been around since the country's founding in the late 18th century, but it wasn't given a name until 1931. That's when American writer and historian James Truslow Adams (1878–1949) published his book The Epic of America. In it, he said life in America, "should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement." Adams was quick to point out that the American dream was not one of "motor cars or high wages merely." Instead he viewed the United States as a land where people could achieve their full potential and be recognized for their talents "regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." Prolific author Horatio Alger (1832–99) further popularized this notion in his 19th-century best-sellers, including Ragged Dick (1866), the story of an orphan who rises out of poverty through hard work and perseverance. These rags-to-riches stories captured the imagination, but they rarely represented real life. From its inception, the American dream was a myth few were capable of actually achieving.

As time passed and Americans became more prosperous, the American dream became synonymous with home ownership, running one's own business, and the accumulation of material goods. But in the 1930s and early 1940s, the American dream focused on upholding the nation's core values, such as equality for all and achievement through hard work. It is this version of the American dream—the one about opportunity, not things—that Langston Hughes writes about in "Let America Be America Again."

Poetic Form and Literary Devices

"Let America Be America Again" employs free verse instead of a set meter. From the very beginning, any resemblance to a rigid poetic structure is immediately disrupted by the brief one-line parenthetical asides in Stanzas 2 and 4: "(America never was America to me.)" These unusually short one-line stanzas can be contrasted with more commonly used two-line and four-line stanzas called couplets and quatrains. These can be seen in Stanzas 1, 3, and 5–7. After the interruption from the outside voice in Stanza 7, the poem evolves into longer stanzas, several of which Hughes structures through the use of repetition (Stanzas 2 and 4) and anaphora, which is the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive lines as in the repeating phrase "I am" in Stanzas 8, 9, and 10.

"Let America Be America Again" relies heavily on the use of figurative language, or figures of speech that add interest and meaning to a text. Like many writers, Hughes uses metaphors, such as Stanza 3's "Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed." He does not compel his readers to let America be like a dream, but asks them to let the country be the dream itself, a vision of perfect government. Hughes additionally uses similes, such as Stanza 15's "those who live like leeches on the people's lives," to describe people and places. He also personifies, or humanizes, objects and ideas. A good example is found in Stanza 5, where the concept of liberty is depicted as "crowned with no false patriotic wreath." Liberty isn't a tangible person or thing, but the suggestion that it could wear a crown makes it seem like a living being.

Hughes also makes use of literary allusions in "Let America Be America Again." An allusion is a reference to an idea or thing that isn't directly related to the text. A literary allusion refers to another literary work. In this particular poem, Hughes uses the phrase "O Pioneers!" This refers to an 1865 poem by American poet Walt Whitman (1819–92) and perhaps even a 1913 novel by American author Willa Cather (1873–1947), which both use the phrase in their titles. In Stanza 17 Hughes alludes to the United States Constitution.

Figurative language is common in poems and literature, but apostrophe isn't found as much. Apostrophe occurs when the narrator or speaker of the work addresses an imaginary person or idea. Its Latin translation is "turning away." Hughes uses apostrophe in Stanza 7 where the speaker addresses the voice that interrupts the poem to ask who is "mumbl[ing] in the dark."

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