negro poem

Read “Negro” by Langston Hughes on pages 502-503 in your Portable Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing textbook.
Make sure to also read the paragraph after the poem on page 503. This paragraph will help you with overall meaning of the poem.
Write a 500-word analysis of the poem (1 point will be taken for every 15 words this analysis is short)
Marxist Criticism – How has society (and/or capitalism) helped to keep inequality going, or how has society failed to stop this inequality?
Reader Response Criticism – What do you think of the poem? Of the persona (the narrator of the poem)? Did you identify a specific theme? What message do you think Langston Hughes wants to get across to his readers? Do you think that message was successful? You will need to directly quote the poem at least two times as well as provide an explanation of why each example stood out to you as a reader.
Remember, I said that the criticisms can be looked at as what or who we can blame for the issues characters face (or that personae in a poem face). That’s not exactly how they’re used, but I think it helps to look at them that way when learning about the criticisms. They can be difficult to grasp. So, if we go that direction with Marxist Criticism, we would blame the hierarchies in society for the inequality between the races that we see in Hughes’s poetry. Another direction you might go would be to discuss how capitalism creates the foundation for the issues Hughes discusses in his poetry.
I also want you to provide analysis using Reader Response Criticism. Bring in at least two things from the poem (directly quote the poem instead of summarizing) that stood out to you and explain why. This is your opportunity to share your own opinion based on what you’ve read and observed. You might talk about the rhythm of his poem. You might discuss how this poem is relevant today. You might react to the message Hughes is trying to convey. There’s always a lot that can be said with Reader Response Criticism.
Remember, when quoting poems, you include the line number, not the page number. If you look at the poem on pages 502-503, you’ll see numbers on the right hand side (5, 10, 15). Each of those numbers represents the line number. So, if I quote the line “All the way from Africa to Georgia,” I would end the sentence with the line number in parenthesis (Hughes line 11).

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