Week 6: Tuesday, Feb. 21st

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes

Equal rights have always been a very interesting topic to me because it has always been so controversial.  In Hughes poem he really emphasizes how this topic has shaped him into the person he is today, and he does a lot of this throughout many of his poems.  When Langston says, "I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young." (Line 5) he is saying that even when he was a young boy this controversy was affecting his life.  He then goes on to mention other times in his life by referring to other rivers, "I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. / I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it." (Lines 6-7). This part of the poem shows how throughout his lifetime he dealt with the way society made the norms and he tried to push through the things segregation caused him to face.  He talks about he knows there is light at the end of the tunnel when he says, "I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, / and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset." (Lines 8-9).  This shows how he knows that sooner or later all of the expenses they are paying will be paid off in the end.  At the end of this poem he expresses how this has shaped him by saying, "My soul has grown deep like the rivers." (Line 12).  The shaping of the life he lived in made him who he is no matter what the circumstances.