Langston Hughes's Poetry

When facing challenges
Perseverance and courage by battered individuals, as a response to misfortune, helps them overcome the difficulties in life. Langston Hughes, “one of the most prominent and influential of the Harlem Renaissance writers”, (Neal, Harry) focuses on these elements in his poetry. By avoiding the obscure and difficult, Hughes manages to capture his deepest emotions in his poemsand express the difficulties of life, the consequences of a lack of courage and strength, and racial pride and dignity resulting from adversity, in order to encourage readers to overcome challenges and never give up.
There will always be ups and downs in one’s life, so one must learn how to confront these challenges through determination and courage. In the poem Mother to son, Langston Hughesconfirms this with a mother’s words of wisdom to her son. She shares with her son the struggles and the difficulties she has been through since “life for [her] ain’t been no crystal stair” (Hughes, “Mother to son” 2). Life has battered her. In a warm and heartening tone, the mother approaches her son through words of advice and encourages him to never give up, not to “turn back/…/or fall now”(Hughes, “Mother to son” 14-17). This clearly demonstrates Hughes own emotions about facing difficulties in life through a brave character.
One characteristic of Langston Hughes’ poetry is its informal language. It makes his poems understandable and approachable, which captures the reader. Nevertheless, in spite of “its lyricism [being] direct and honest”, his poetry is not “simplistic in thepejorative sense” (Neal, Larry). This is a very useful technique in his poetry as the colloquial language makes his poems readable and comprehensible by most readers. Comparisons such as “Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?” (Hughes, “Dream Deferred” 2-3) also keeps his poetry at a very understandable level. The purpose of this technique was successful as it reached the audience by presentingelements such as poverty, misfortune and oppression with straightforward and every-day examples of a hard life.
More techniques are employed by Langston Hughes in his poetry. He uses symbols to vividly illustrate the poem Mother to Son, such as the word “tacks” which represents the discomfort of obstacles. Also, the “stairs” symbolize the exhausting uphill climb in life and the “crystal stair”(Hughes, “Mother to Son” 2) represents clarity, perfection and luxury; things the mother in the poem did not have in her life. However, despite the hardship of her life, the mother was perseverant enough to keep going and dust herself off every time she fell down, which proves that perseverance does help overcome the obstacles one might be forced to face.
Postponing or ignoring one’s dreams anddeepest desires –due to a lack of courage and strength– can be self-destructive. “What happens to a dream deferred?” (Hughes, “Dream Deferred” 1). Hughes question is not fully answered in the poem; it leaves the reader wondering. Nonetheless, it suggests that it explodes, which symbolizes one’s destruction. All one needs to make their dreams come true is courage, perseverance and strength.
Although“[he’s] been scarred and battered”, (Hughes, “I’m Still Here” 1-8) Langston Hughes states he is still present. Saying he is still there demonstrates his perseverance after all the battles in life. Life will always present challenges and one might have to face more than one. But if one follows his or her dreams, eventually they will learn to get up easily when they fall. And more important, tounderstand that falling does not mean failure; it means getting stronger. It is true that dreams sometimes take longer to come true, and that some goals might seem unachievable. Nevertheless, the purpose of Langston Hughes in referring to dreams and not giving up is encouraging to the reader. Life was not meant to be easy; people were meant to be strong.
Pride and dignity comes from adversity and...