Friday, February 22, 2013
I, Too, Sing America
I, too, sing America
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But i laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful i am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America
Imagery: When i first looked at this poem i could really visualize when Langston Hughes says,"I am the darker brother." I saw a black man sitting at the table of a wealthy white family showing them that he is in America the land of the free too, and just because he is colored that shouldnt have to change.
Sound Device: "But i laugh" I found it as a euphony, a big colored man laughing when someone tells him he cant do something. He was a go getter, he wasnt going to let color get in his way!
Figures of speech: "I am the dark brother" this phrase is an hyperbole because he is comparing hiself to the family of white folk and the table that he is sitting at.
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In the third stanza second line Langston wrote, "Tomorrow, I'll be at the table...". I believe the table is a very important image and part of the poem. The table symbolizes equal freedom of all people in America. Every human in America wanted to be able to get to the "table" so they could provide their family with the substances needed to live. Some blacks during the Harlem Renaissance were barely given the necessities to survive let alone enough for an entire family. I believe this is the most important image in this poem.
ReplyDeleteAnother sound device that is in the poem is, “company comes” it is alliteration and cacophony. It enhances the story because it draws your attention to the fact that when other people come to the table that is when he is sent to the kitchen. It shows you that the family is ashamed of having a black man in their house, and that they don’t want him to be around their guests.
ReplyDeleteI think the las stanza, "Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed--", was an example of what he was already beginning to see. Although there was not a large group of white people who felt that black people were equal, but he knew they were to come. He knows the embarrassment or shame eventually the white colored people will feel for doing what they did to black people. To him this is the punishment he'd be content with seeing them experience.
ReplyDeleteGoing off of what Audrey said, I feel that that statement was very powerful. He already knows that he is beautiful, he is just waiting for the white people to realize it. In this case, beautiful doesn't exactly mean "looks", instead it's saying beauty is equality. For him to say he is beautiful, he is saying that he sees himself as being equal to everyone. This is something many African Americans thought back then, but unfortunately, they just had to wait a while until the white people realized it.
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