Gee, that poor shine!
This poem is a narrative about someone experiencing the Harlem Renaissance. This poem seems to be about Black people embracing their heritage and being proud of where they came from. We see someone embrace their heritage, by dancing on the streets of Harlem.
Be still, be still, my precious child, I must not give you birth!
This poem is heartbreaking. A Black woman first addresses her child. A child that she would like to have but is not ready to. This child is knocking on her door and wants to be born into the world. She doesn't want to let it into the world, because the world is not kind to Black children. She can only hope that there will come a time when she can bring the child into the an accepting world, hope that things will change.
You! Stirring the depths of passionate desire!
I think this is a poem about a woman lover. It seems that it was not really meant to reach anyone’s eyes except her lovers. I wonder if at the time, the audience may have not understood blatant homosexuality in writing because it wasn’t represented at that time.
want to breathe the Lotus flow’r,
The lotus flower is an egyptian flower that is sacred in many countries, could be considered part of her heritage. She's speaking with so much pride about her heritage throughout this poem, why was the mention of the lotus flower important? She seems to mention nature many times throughout her poem, why does she do this?
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
The blues are able to capture the pain and suffering that Black people endure. Channeling that pain can also be draining for the musicians who play it. Such as this musician and how it seems that he's lost some of his humanity.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
He places the singer is Harlem which was at the heart of black culture during that time. He's in a vibrant neighborhood, yet Hughes shows us the way in which racism takes down that vibrancy.
Through having had to appeal from the unjust stereotypes of his oppressors and traducers to those of his liberators, friends and benefactors he has subscribed to the traditional positions from which his case has been viewed.
This line makes me think of the "white savior complex" that is still prevalent today. It's unfortunate that this piece, being written so long ago, is still relevant in many ways. When it comes to this topic, society has not progressed as much as it should have.
His shadow, so to speak, has been more real to him than his personality.
I feel that this line brings attention to the negative effects that stereotyping brings. The idea of what a Black person should be, draws away attention from who they really. This is mainly because of the expectations that were set upon them by White society.
The answer is no; not because the New Negro is not here, but because the Old Negro had long become more of a myth than a man. The Old Negro, we must remember, was a creature of moral debate and historical controversy. His has been a stock figure perpetuated as an historical fiction partly in innocent sentimentalism, partly in deliberate reactionism.
Locke is bringing attention to the idea that the older generation had trouble establishing their independence. This being because they were still being treated as slaves. The new generation is different because they actually have the ability to establish their independence.
hey furnish a wealth of colorful, distinctive material for any artist because they still hold their own individuality in the face of American standardizations.
He's praising the Black lower classes because they're not ashamed of their own identities. Instead of conforming to white standards in order to earn approval, they just don't care what others think of them. It's better to uphold your own values, instead of submitting to those of others.
Until recently he received almost no encouragement for his work from either white or colored people.
Black artists not only work against their own community’s criticism. They also have to deal with the more obvious disapproval from their white audiences. They deal with more pressure than White artists do and they're judged more harshly.
One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, “I want to be a poet–not a Negro poet,” meaning, I believe, “I want to write like a white poet”; meaning subconsciously, “I would like to be a white poet”; meaning behind that, “I would like to be white.”
Hughes is bringing attention to the idea that society has taught Black people to hate their Blackness. At the same time, society has also taught them to desire whiteness.
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
This new speaker immediately refers to the reader as "son of man". He's referencing the bible, specifically Ezekiel 2:7. In this scripture God calls Ezekiel the "son of man" and tells him to stand up in order to face God. Why does he reference this scripture? Does this speaker think of themselves as a higher power?
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox
Using present tense and past tense, as if he is still in the process of eating the plum.
and so cold
The speaker shows guilt, yet the feeling of guilt is overpowered by how delicious the plums were.
Unless it be that marriage perhaps with a dash of Indian blood
What does he mean by "a dash of Indian blood"? People do not usually associate marriage with things such as "murder" and "disease".
But now the stark dignity of entrance—Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted they grip down and begin to awaken
He ends the poem with no punctuation, which may signify the fact that revitalization will still occur. Although it's a slow process to regain something, that does not mean it can't be achieved.
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches—
I feel that he's personifying spring as "sluggish" in order to get the point across that the initial stages of spring are not full of life as people portray it to be. It will gradually get there, but it will take time.
Beyond, the waste of broad, muddy fields brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
It's interesting that he uses this imagery in the beginning of the poem. When I have previously read poems about spring, they began with much more beautiful imagery. He's being more of a realist here, the beauty of spring does not appear from one day to another.
The sikly, powdery mignonette Before these gathering dews are gone
The imagery of beautiful flowers in odd places is interesting. Did she do this for a particular reason? In order to show that beauty can be found even in the most unexpected places?
It well may be. I do not think I would.
This poem was interesting because it seems as if she's conflicted throughout the poem. Almost as if she actually wants to be loved, but she also wants nothing to do with love at the same time.
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
Although you will not die if you don't have love and love will not heal you physically, love still holds power. People still go to great lengths after heartbreak, after the loss of love. People can even die of heartbreak, love can still hold immense power over people.
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
It's interesting that he does not oppose his argument out loud, instead he just states what he's always been told perhaps. He doesn't know any better and he's not even open to the idea of not having walls.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out,
He's pointing out that walls keep some people out and some inside. It creates division, that's the main purpose. It's meant to alienate the outsiders.
My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
The speaker is beginning to realize that there isn't really a need for the wall. There's no point of constantly going through the struggle of repairing it. The neighbor points out that the wall essentially keeps the peace between them. This reminds me of the political talk of boarders and it's as if they're two different sides of that argument.
And shook his head, and was again alone.
Ending and beginning the poem with the idea that he's very alone. Seeing it at the beginning of them poem, I didn't really feel bad for him but now I do. It's clear that he has no one and he even talks to himself.
I did not think that I should find them there When I came back again; but there they stood,
It seems that, "they", may be friends from the speakers past/youth. He just genuinely did not expect to see them in the same place, but it seems as if it's a positive thing. The run-on sentence here makes it also seem as if he's just genuinely shocked.
With trembling care, knowing that most things break; And only when assured that on firm earth It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Mr.Flood has clearly been drinking, yet he's able to recognize how fragile life can be. He's recognizing this through the idea that his jug may break, this may hint to the fact that he's dying. Is he drinking because of this?
Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
It's fitting that the speaker includes the word "alone", in the same line in which we are introduced to Mr.Flood. It really sets the tone for the rest of the poem.
And you that ache so much to be sublime, And you that feed yourselves with your descent, What comes of all your visions and your fears?
The speakers repetition of the words "and you" almost make it feel as if the reader is being attacked.
John says I musn’t lose my strength, and has me take cod liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat. Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick.
He loves her, but it's clear that he is confined to the traditional gender norms of the time. His inability to understand her, has only led to her decline in mental health. At that point when it's clear that something is wrong with her, why does he still not believe her?
This paper looks to me as if it KNEW what a vicious influence it had!
Her mental health is getting worse, she believes that an inanimate object is evil. She's unable to get help, which unfortunately means her condition will only worsen.
Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose
He see's her more as something he has ownership of, he wants to control her. It's sad that he doesn't take her mental health seriously.
And yet I CANNOT be with him, it makes me so nervous.
PPD? Postpartum depression is something that many women struggle with. At the time it was probably something that women didn't speak about and it clearly wasn't taken seriously.
I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.
Their relationship does not seem stable. He invalidates her feelings and refuses to believe that she is sick. He's a physician which means that he automatically "knows what's best". Yet, he's asking her to avoid thinking about the problem. Something that may just lead to her getting worse.
Work, culture, liberty,—all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together, each growing and aiding each, and all striving toward that vaster ideal that swims before the Negro people, the ideal of human brotherhood, gained through the unifying ideal of Race; the ideal of fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather in large conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic, in order that some day on American soil two world-races may give each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack
In this last paragraph, the speaker is saying that black and white people need to come together. By coming together, they would improve society. Both sides have things they can learn from one another, but they must first be able to put their differences aside. White people have to stop viewing the Black people as different, from them, and stop viewing themselves as "higher".
Nevertheless, out of the evil came something of good,—the more careful adjustment of education to real life, the clearer perception of the Negroes’ social responsibilities, and the sobering realization of the meaning of progress.
Referring to the fact that access to education has resulted in black people becoming more aware of all the injustice.
The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.
I find it interesting that he's referring to the fact that black people were still "imprisoned" at the time. Although they were no longer slaves, their were still restrictions that they had to live with.
Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil
The veil may represent the separation between the black and white people. They live in the same communities, but there's something that separates them. Something that cannot be seen, yet is undeniably there. That is being described as a veil.
What
The constant use of the word "what" in every question makes it sound as if he's interviewing God, but he doesn't get an answer back. (use of anaphora)
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
Up until this point he kept saying "could", but here he changes it to "dare". Why does he do this?
What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
I find these lines interesting because he's questioning which "immortal" created the tiger, yet he already knows. I feel that his question goes deeper than that and leans toward the direction of, why evil exists? Why would someone create something that can cause fear and harm? Why create all of these good things and then create evil ones?
Among the thousand symbols of ultimate energy the dynamo was not so human as some, but it was the most expressive.
Why does Adams refer to it as "most expressive"? What does he mean by this? How can something inhuman be expressive when it means to "effectively convey thoughts or feelings."
As he grew accustomed to the great gallery of machines, he began to feel the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force, much as the early Christians felt the Cross.
Now that Adams is used to all the new technology, he has faith in science? I can kind of see what he is attempting to say, but it's a little difficult for me to see the connection between the dynamo and the cross.
nightmare at a hundred kilometres an hour, almost as destructive as the electric tram which was only ten years older; and threatening to become as terrible as the locomotive steam-engine itself, which was almost exactly Adams’s own age.
Adams mentions that he is the same age as locomotive steam-engine. Is there a specific reason as to why he does this? He's essentially grown up surrounded by new inventions that he's unfamiliar with. Is it the unfamiliarity with all the new technology that provokes fear within him?
From all my white sins forgiven
Is this referring to racial injustice?
From my five arms and all my hands,
Is there a reason as to why we don't know anything about the speaker until the last stanza?
They feed they Lion
I feel that he is saying, "They Lion Grow" in a different way here. By feeding the Lion, he grows. Why did Levine choose to word it in this way at the end of the poem?