Bridging Text And Context- "As I Grew Older"

Bridging Text And Context- p.54:

The poem "As I Grew Older" is about a black man who tries to break the wall in order to change his life and make his dream come true.

The poet Langston Hughes is an African American poet who grew up in America.  At the time he wrote the poem he and his people suffered from racism

He refuses to accept this reality and wishes the African-Americans will be equal in the white society and integrate in it.

He wants to achieve his wishes through art, literature and music, a way which expresses the African-American's emotions and voices.

In his poem we see that he wants to emphaise the fact that he is a black man by his saying "I am black". The wall is actually a metaphor for the inability to achieve childhood dreams because of prejudice and racial discrimination.

In the end, he breaks and smashes the wall in order to show that the black people are equal to them and have the same rights as the white people.

The background information helps us to understand the poem better and the poet's feeling and motive to change the conservative white society.

 

 

Good work.

(85)
Daphna