Analytical Essay- ‘the Ballad of the Landlord’
Analytical Essay- ‘The Ballad of the Landlord’ Can you imagine living in a world of bigotry? Well no need for imagination, because truth of the matter is that we currently live in one. The world around us is filled with different kinds of prejudicial people. But if you think present day racialism is disgraceful, you’re wrong ! If you would have experienced what the African-Americans went through you would think twice about your thoughts on present day racism. In the poem “Ballad of the Landlord”, by Langston Hughes, the poet uses the poetic devices of imagery and allusion to help reveal the meaning of the poem. Which is that, in the 40’s racism was much more worse than it is today. Throughout the poem, the author uses the poetic device of imagery. For example: “Precinct Station. Iron cell. Headlines in press…”, the poet is trying to design a image in your head of what the character was seeing. He wanted you to capture a glance in the eyes of the innocent individual. The author wants one to see in our mind’s eyes. He wanted you to feel the experience by describing both the cell’s and station’s features. By doing this, Langston Hughes was trying to get you to be in the exact time and place . Another poetic device shown during the poem was allusion. For example: “ …judge gives Negro 90 days in county jail.”, by using the term ‘Negro’ the author takes us to back in the day. In those times Negro was a commonly used word as disrespect for the blacks. This relates to my theme because it tells you how brutal things actually were. Whether you were innocent or guilty, it didn’t matter, but if you were of a different color, like black, then you were without a doubt guilty of any given situation. The author left it ultimately up to us to make a comparison between racialism then and now. So as we live in this world of bigotry just know that the people of the 40’s had it twice as bad. Today we have integrated classes, communities, families, societies, and the list