Langston+Hughes

By: Langston Hughes


Summary: Life is Fine by Langston Hughes is a poem about someone who tries to commit suicide, but in the end realizes that there is more to life. Langston Hughes uses anaphora in this poem when he repeats he word I several times. Also, he repeats cried in the second stanza, line two and in the fourth stanza on line two. The word died is repeated second stanza, line four and again fourth stanza, line four. This poem has a non-patterned end rhyme scheme and also enjambled lines. The main speaker in this poem sounds like it could be a woman because she says she thought about her baby and thought she would jump. Maybe this was a mom that was driven to the edge by a newborn. At the end of this poem in the last two stanzas, the person says that since they are living they might as well live their life to the fullest. Even when there are ups and **downs nothing** is worth them dying over.

I think the baby here isn't literal; it's a lover & the voice will not allow the lover to defeat him/her. ​ Excerpts: “If that water hadn’t a-been so cold I might’ve sunk and died.” I took these two lines as she was trying to kill herself, but something prevented her from doing it. The poem says that if the water wasn’t so cold she would have gone through with it, but I think that really there was a part of her that wanted to live. “So since I’m still here livin’ I guess I will live on” These two lines in the fifth stanza seem like a resolution to me. The person who tried to kill themselves has, come to the realization that they didn’t go through with the suicide and are still here. I think that now they have that epiphany that they are living for a reason and are going to go on and live their life to its fullest. “Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry— I’ll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die.” This last stanza of the poem to me means that even when life gets tough for the person, they may cry, scream, what ever, but they will live on because they don’t want there baby to see them die or have to go through and experience the grief of their death.

Reflection: I liked this poem because it has a good meaning of when life **gets** tough or hard, push through. Also, in light or the past few months it has given me inspiration about life and living it because life is worth living, not dying. When I first read this I **got** the initial impression that some one was going to commit suicide and it was going to be a sad poem. After reading it a few times and thinking about it, I have **gotten** a different impression. This is actually somewhat of a happy poem that teaches a lesson. I do wonder though if there was an event in Langston Hughes’s life that caused him to write this poem.


 * I imagine being a black man during this era was indeed daunting.**

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