Langston Hughes-Democracy The driving force behind modernist poetry was change. The genre brought a change of style and theme to poetry from flowery sonnets to new verse and substance. They embodied themes of sexism, racism,degradation. This was especially true of Langston Hughes work. Hughes lived in the early 1900‘s America, a land of division and blatant racism. In Langston Hughes poem “Democracy” change is sought and demanded. The poem was written during the Jim Crow regulations and widespread segregation in the United States. So the very concept of a black man, searching for equality was the very embodiment of modernist theme, change. Hughes felt compelled to speak his mind for equality and his birthright freedom via poetry. He clearly addresses his points of view about democracy in the first stanza of "Democracy" “Democracy will not come”(p.1043) and for a black man that was certainly true. The different stanzas evoke different emotions, the first identifies the problem, the second revels his anger at the two classes, the third his frustration over waiting for change, and the fourth culminating with a metaphor and a manifesto for equality. The metaphor freedom is a strong seed, the seed was planted in this country’s beginnings and as the seed grew from the ground he was also lives here, too. The poem is told from the first person point view, the author. He believes his rights should parallel those of white people, without compromising his dignity in
