Thursday, March 25, 2010
Song for a Dark Girl- Cobb.
"Song for a Dark Girl," wrote by Langston Hughes, talks about a time in history that was about racial inequality, and it was also during the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a time period of intellectual movement for African-Americans through poetry, literature, and jazz, or the Blues. Langston Hughes, along with Claude McKay, pressed this movement forward with works like "Song for a Dark Girl." This poem talks about Whites being abusive mentally and physically towards the African-Americans of that period. In the first stanza, it talks about the hanging of the speaker's black lover. It just shows an example of racial discrimination that was happening in that time. In the second stanza, the speaker talks about another "bruised body high in the air." Once again, it talks of inequality, as well in the final stanza. The last stanza mentions that love is a shadow. This makes one think that all African-Americans had in that time was love, and that was the most important thing for them. It also says that love is naked and hanging on a "gnarled and naked tree." These last two lines are moreso of an oxymoron. In most's opinion love is beautiful and worthwhile, however, this states it is hanging from a gnarled tree. The word gnarled to me is more of a grotesque word. In that one word, it describes the people of that time period who supported racial discrimination.
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Cobb is right in this reading it is about inequality and racism that was and in some ways still oppressed not just upon African Americans but people in general. During that time period Blacks were seen as inferior and by it being the time of the Harlem Renaissance they were able to express themselves freely and count for the injustice that was done or committed them. In the song for a black girl one can sort of feel the pain and anguish that she was going through thus loosing someone that she truly loved and by that writers were able to write with such sincerity.
ReplyDeletei agree with cobb about how this poem dealt with the racism of the time. but what i got from this poem was that the speaker was conveying his love to the girl that had been executed due to the racism of the time. i also think that the speaker was saying at the end about how his love is hanging from the tree along with the girl and now that shes dead so is his love for anything else in the world.
ReplyDeleteI too would like to say that Cobb is right and wrote a very good blog. I believe that this poem is very symbolic as Cobb said and is can be used in many ways to see what African Americans had to go through in that day and time. Cobb's blog was well written and I enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI beleive that this poem is keyed around the problems with society during that time period. Alot have changed since than, and it is good to look back and see the beginning of the civil rights movement. The poem shows whats wrong with how these girls are forced to live and how they could still make it with the day to day struggle. Overall, cobb did a good job and hit the main points of what the poem entailed and what the underlying message was and Hughes point of writing the story.
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