Oppression

Just One Dream Many fought against oppression and had a dream of equality. Many had to cast down their buckets and appreciated what they had. Many wanted respect through literature and education. But one civil rights leader helped change the world by listening to Jazz and Blues music in a club. Langston Hughes’ conveyed message accentuates for individuals who are oppressed through use of anaphora, allusion, irony, and rhetorical questions. There are many literary terms that enhance the author’s conveyed message, for example, anaphora. Anaphora created an understanding of what the poet wants the reader to understand. After the first and second stanzas, Langston Hughes states, “ America was never America to me.”. This highlights the whole meaning of the poem, that he begs for the dream that it never was. That everyone other than the oppressed are optimistic of America’s democratic opportunities, but Langston Hughes is a black person and part of the oppressed society. He is writing in the point of view of someone who is less happy of what America is. Another literary term that enhances the author’s conveyed message is allusion. He alludes on how we live in a flawed democracy in which many didn’t receive the rights they deserved. In the poem, it states “O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home-- For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came To build a “‘homeland of the free.’” He put “homeland of the free” in quotations, because this is really not what it was. He’s referring to the millions of immigrants who have stepped foot on America to realize that it isn’t the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”. It’s the land of the oppressed and the home of the scarred, where you couldn’t even vote if you were a woman, black person, and many more. To call this a democracy is close to madness. Other literary terms used by Langston Hughes are irony and rhetorical questions. The point of irony is to strike the reader’s heart with what America has the potential to be, but isn’t. O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe. (There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.") This example of irony in these stanzas basically reverses the whole idea of equality. At the time, discrimination against black people occurred everywhere, whether it’d be in voting or in education. This also nullifies the idea of democracy, where “everyone” has the power. In the poem, he states various times that America is great and reverses it with a correction that says it isn’t, like the example above, where he ceases the idea of equality. The point of rhetorical questions is to make the reader think about the topic at hand. For example, when he says “ The free' Who said the free' Not me' He asks a rhetorical question twice. There is really no answer. He states that America is the “homeland of the free” many times in the poem. but how can it be the homeland of the free if an enormous percentage of the people in this wonderland have no freedom. That’s a rhetorical question for America to answer. The black people who were stricken down by chains of discrimination weren’t exactly free at the time. Langston Hughes’ dream is alive and well. It’s still being worked on, but the times have improved and people who could not vote before, can now. Therefore, Langston Hughes’ conveyed message accentuates for individuals who are oppressed through use of anaphora, allusion, irony, and rhetorical questions. The dream will never rest until America becomes the dream that it never was!