Poem Analysis - As I Grew Older, Langston Hughes Essay...

Poem Analysis â€Å"As I Grew Older,† by Langston Hughes Time passes by, leaving behind memories but dreams never fade. They are immortalised in ones’ souls. In the poem, â€Å"As I Grew Older† by Langston Hughes, the persona’s dreams are immortalised since his childhood although he faces numerous obstacles in achieving them. The poem is about one’s dream in life. In the quest of his journey, the persona encounters enormous number of challenges and barriers. The theme of this poem revolves around the strong willingness and the hardship needed for ones to achieve their goals. For teenagers, dreams seem to be their inspiration in life. They are stronger with the presence of dreams in their life. The persona first introduces his poem with the†¦show more content†¦It is showed in lines ‘I am black’ (line 14) and ‘I lie down in the shadow’ (line 15). For those who believe that they can achieve and acquire their dreams, they will certainly come out from the ‘shadow’ and run towards their dreams along the route of success as in the lines ‘Break through the wall’ (line22) and ‘Find my dream!’(line 23). (1) There is an ample number of literary devices in the poem â€Å"As I Grew Older† by Langston Hughes. The most prominent one is simile as in the line ‘Bright like a sun’. The poet compares his dream as bright as a sun. It is understood that the sun is the symbol of brightness and clearness (Simpsom Weiner, 1989). So does the persona’s dream. It is so clear to him, shines and never fades in his life. Apart from that, the wall is used is to symbolise the hardships and barriers that need to be encountered by the persona. The symbolism of wall as the hardship and barriers are really effective in this poem. The wall is depicted as hardship, barrier, limitations, conformity, exclusion, imprisonment, alienation and isolation (Calvo Jacques, 1998) that arises slowly but leaves a gigantic impact on the persona’s life. ‘And then the wall rose’ (line 7), ‘Rose slowly’ (line 8). The persona is drawn back in his life by the arisen wall as ‘I lie down in the shadow’ (line 15). The line ‘I lie in the shadow’ depicts that the persona has given up hope in his life, being restless, refuse to strive anymore for his life andShow MoreRelatedA Critical Analysis Of Langston Hughes Merry Go Round1789 Words   |  8 Pages A Critical Analysis of Langston Hughes’ â€Å"Merry-Go-Round† â€Å"Where Is The Jim Crow Section† Langston Hughes (1942) A little boy, accompanied by his mother, holds a ticket as he looks excitedly at a county fair’s carnival ride. As they get closer to the merry-go-round, he anticipates all the fun he will have, but then a puzzled look crosses his face.â€Å"Merry-Go-Round† by Langston Hughes criticizes the Jim Crow laws in the U.S. The justice system of Jim Crow were state and local lawsRead MoreAugust Wilson3685 Words   |  15 Pagescontinuum as Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, and Thelonius Monk.1 When I began research on August Wilson I asked myself, so what? So what if hes won awards and recognition? What has he done to merit them? What makes this man important enough to do a research paper on? Why not Langston Hughes or Martin Luther King, Jr.? What makes this man matter in this society? As I continued my research I realized that, throughout my entire life, I had been deprived of knowing about such a man as August Wilson. I realizedRead MoreNot Without Laughter Study Guide9912 Words   |  40 PagesLiterature Study Guide Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes For the online version of BookRags Not Without Laughter Literature Study Guide, including complete copyright information, please visit: http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-not-without-laughter/ Copyright Information  ©2000-2012 BookRags, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gales For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works:Read MoreAlice Malsenior6001 Words   |  25 Pagesteaching her life lessons that would be underlying tones in her multiple works (Bates, Alice Walker: A Critical Companion). Walker was a confident young girl until 1952, when an accident involving a BB gun left her blinded her in one eye. Although her older brother offered to pay for an operation to correct the impairment, Walker would never fully recover the sight of her right eye. The young Alice Walker would begin wearing glasses for the remainder of her life. The ridicule and loneliness that was created