Langston Hughes

1
Langston Hughes

• Born in Joplin, Missouri
• His favorite place to go as a young boy was to
  the library
• Began writing poetry as a way to express his
  feelings of always moving and being a young
  African American in the early 1900s
• Influenced by his grandmothers stories about
  slavery and freedom

2
Hughes contd.

• Attended Columbia University for a year
• Spent a year in Mexico and then traveled as a
  merchant seaman to Africa and Europe after
  leaving college
• While working as a busboy, he left a packet of
  his poems on the table of a famous poet, Vachel
  Lindsay

3
Hughes contd.

• Lindsay eventually read these poems before an
  audience and launched Hughes writing career
• He was a novelist, poet, essayist and dramatist
• Many of his stories are about city life for
  African Americans

4
About the Story

• Hughes writes about the dignity of the common
  people using Harlem as the setting.
• Harlem is a community in New York City that
  became the center of African American
  intellectual and artistic life
• As more and more people moved into Harlem, many
  single-family buildings were converted into small
  apartments to create more housing

5
About the Story

• The characters speak in urban dialect, using
  everyday speech and expressions
• The main character lives in a bedsit or
  kitchenette which is even smaller than an
  apartment. It usually has one room for both
  sleeping and eating, plus a bath.

6
Theme

• Is the underlying message or insight about life
  that it communicates.
• It may be directly stated in the text or, more
  commonly, indirectly stated.
• To understand the theme, the reader needs to
  notice details about the characters, the storys
  events and setting, and asking, What aspect of
  life does the author want me to think about?