Literary Analysis Essay on Theme of Struggling and Suffering in Poetry: Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes

Introduction

Poetry is a vital communication tool that poets and writers apply to convey their message to the intended audience either through reading or listening to music. Poetry is a field of expression that has been around for a long time dating back to ancient history. Through poems, the authors can present their audience with various social issues that they go through in their day to day lives. The subject matter of a poem gets referred to as the theme. This is usually the main topic in the poem that the writer pays particular attention to and contains the intended message. In the word of poetry, there have been several iconic figures who impacted the field with their exemplary works. Such two figures are Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Maya Angelou original name Marguerite Annie Johnson was an American singer, human rights activist, and poet who was born in the year 1928 and passed on in May of 2014. Maya is a renowned figure in the field of poetry given the various poems that she wrote and went ahead to win numerous awards and accolades. Her first poem that paved her way in the world of writing was, "Why the caged bird sings." The poem sheds light on her young life of up to the age of 17 and the challenges she went through. Being of an African- American descent, Maya underwent various trying moments and expressed some of her challenges in writing. "The Phenomenal Woman" is one poem in which she presents the reader with the theme of struggle and suffering and also the plight of women in the society. (Battersby, 2013)

In the poem, Maya clouds the phenomenal woman in mystery, and it is hard to tell how she maintains such an aptitude and elegance in her life. However, despite her social status and sophistication, the phenomenal woman is not free of struggles or suffering. She is aware of her looks that she admits are not pretty nor fashionable. In the poem, she says, "I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size, but when I start to tell them, they think I'm telling lies." Despite the phenomenal woman being well adjusted in other social aspects, she is not happy or contented about her outward appearance. (Coyle, 2015) The woman appears to be struggling with self-esteem issues that make her acknowledge that she is not cute nor is her body structure the desirable kind. In the poem, the writer addresses the appearance and self-awareness issues that most women struggle within the attempt to look beautiful. Although one may get accomplished in other areas, the little flaws will always cause suffering consciously or subconsciously.

Further along the read, the phenomenal woman says, "They try so much, but they can't touch My inner mystery." Here she admits to the reader that there are specific issues that she hides from her admirers. Despite being so accomplished on the outside, what the woman harbors inside her is unknown to the people on the outside. This, therefore, implies that she suffers in silence while those around her hardly have a clue on what she goes through. In her poem, Maya manages to present the reader with the hidden events that take place in a phenomenal woman's life that go unseen by the people on the outside.

Langston Hughes is yet another poet whose contribution and work of art in poetry is hard to look past. Born African- American in the year 1901 and passed on in May of 1967, Hughes was an iconic figure whose captivating work always had his readers and other poetry lovers not only entertained but also educated and informed. Hughes is accredited with being among one of the inventors of the form of jazz poetry among other accolades in the field. Langston had a troubled relationship with his father and hardly got to interact with him as a child. Consequently, biographers and academics believe that he was homosexual attributing this to cues picked from his poetry work. With this kind of societal setting, Hughes was no stranger to struggling and suffering. One of his poems which vividly elicits this theme is "Mother to Son." In the poem, the writer managed to bring out the theme of racism and oppression that the black people went through in that time. (Gibran, 2016)

Mother to son is a monologue in which a distressed mother walks her son through the trials and tribulations that she has been through in her life. In the poem, the mother says to her son, "Well, son, I'll tell you, Life for me ain't been no crystal stair." With this utterance, the mother makes known to her son that her life had been full of struggles and challenges. Given his African- American origin, the poet most likely pictured a black woman trying to inform her son of the hard times she has faced in her life owing to the color of her skin. Back in the day, racism was rampant and open. The black community was treated as lesser members of the society with few or no privileges at all. With this in mind, the mother in the poem sees it only right to make sure that her son gets well informed of the ups and downs he will face in life.

By using imagery and other writing styles, Hughes can depict the suffering that people often undergo in the journey of life. "It's had tacks in it, and splinters" the tacks and splinters are imagery for the irritation and hard times that we often have to face in life. (Johnson, 2018) However, the mother is keen to remind her son that despite the challenges and difficulties, he can never give up but always remain focused and committed to the end.

Works Cited

Battersby, Christine. The phenomenal woman: Feminist Metaphysics and the patterns of identity. Routledge, 2013.

Coyle, Caroline. "PHENOMENAL WOMEN: A POETIC VIEW OF THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE OLDER WIDOW IN IRISH SOCIETY." Postgraduate Journal of Women, Ageing and Media (PGWAM), November 2015, Issue 2 (2015): 120.

Gibran, Kahfi. "A MOTHER'S STRUGGLE IN LANGSTON HUGHES'S "MOTHER TO SON." LANTERN (Journal on English Language, Culture and Literature) 5.3 (2016).

Johnson, Sherry. "My Dear Boy: Carrie Hughes's Letters to Langston Hughes 1926-1938 eds. by Carmaletta Williams and John Tidwell." American Studies 56.3 (2018): 118-119.