Padar, Page 1 Hunter Padar Composition II Instructor: Vassberg September 22, 1999

Langston Hughes Homecoming

Langston Hughes was a prolific poet, writer, and voice of the African American artistic and musical movement , better known as the Harlem Renaissance, of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Langston was well known for his accurate portrayls of the American Negro cultural experience of the early 20th century. Langston Hughes works were evocative, and by blending the hopes, dreams, and harsh realities of Harlem life, his writings offered inspiration to unite Americans of African descent (Rummel 16). A world traveler by choice, Langston Hughes worked as a merchant seaman, visited Africa, lived for a time in Paris and Rome, and even worked as a reporter for a Russian newspaper Izvestia (Smithsonian 1). An unquenchable social intellectual, Langston reveled in keeping company with the artists, writers and musicians who were defining the state of the arts in America during his life. Hughes met and knew most of the important political and cultural figures of his time, and his writings were informed by these extensive contacts and travels. Langstons writings ranged from folklore to leftist politics as these subjects related to African Americans and race relations in the United States(Rummel 27). Never well known for militant racial literature, Hughes preferred to inspire racial equality through the connotations of words in his works on racial relations. In Homecoming, to the Langston Hughes iniate, the poems tone is a lament of a love lost. Homecoming is a call for action of the African American community to motivate, unite, and recapture their common heritage. In the first line of the poem, Langston is reflecting on his return to America after a trip to Africa. In Africa, Langston witnessed how the African citizens managed their own destiny throughout their histories with little interference from whites. The first line in the poem, Homecoming, reflects Langstons displeasure upon coming back to America. The word back in the first line shows how Langston believes that America has retarded the progress of his people. Alley, also in the first line, is defined as a narrow back street

Padar, Page 2 (Stein 36), although Langston hopes the reader will feel the negative connotation of the alley as a place where bad things happen to good people. The opening of the door Hughes refers to in the second line of the poem is the personification of the introduction of African Americans into American culture. Lines three and four in Homecoming, reflect on those aspects of African life that Langston feels were stripped from newly arrived African Americans. On his travels in Africa, Langston was greatly impressed with the individual expressions of tradition and ritual expressed in the garments the African people wore (Rummel 64). Langston was also impressed at how much at ease he felt in Africa, and after reflection, how America did not foster a feeling of home in him. Langston believed that America could never be considered as a true home to Americans of African descent, until African Americans remembered their African history and began a new American history.(Rummel 27). In the second stanza, Langston is issuing a challenge to the African American population to seize the day, remove the veil of suppression and make their own way. The word pulled in line five denotes physical action, and is an entreaty for African Americans to actively educate themselves and not be satisfied with ignorance. Line five also asks African Americans to look past the cover, or limitations and expectations of non-productivity, levied on them by the white American culture. By making down the bed and using the first person in line six, Langston is picturing what will happen when African Americans motivate to make their own opportunities. Or, in other words, African Americans will make their own beds to lay in, help write a new history of African American contributions , and American culture will no longer control their destiny. A whole lot of room in line seven serves to reinforce the benefits of African American unity to their culture. The word whole is defined as undivided, in one piece(Stein 1503)., and by italicizing on the word whole, Langston draws attention to the word and asks that the writer imagine the full extent of the word whole. Room in line seven denotes all the opportunities African Americans have in America. The last line in Homecoming is the best example of the juxtaposition of the melancholy tone of the poem to the inspirational message Langston is presenting. In line eight, the words only thing, signify a singular entity comprised of everything. Through clever use of word connotations, Langston inspires African Americans to read between the lines of society and motivate to embrace a common heritage. In Homecoming, Langston Hughes proves to be a talented artist who endevearoud to chronicle the African American experience, by contrasting the beauty of the soul within to the oppressive circumstance that enveloped African Americans. With his rich poetic

Padar, Page 3 voice, Langston was one of the most inspirational voices in African American literature of this century and perhaps the single most influential black poet. Works Consulted