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Essay: Symbolism in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”

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  • Reading time: 3 minutes
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  • Published: 26 February 2023*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
  • File format: Text
  • Words: 727 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 3 (approx)
  • Tags: Langston Hughes essays

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Symbolism in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”

People have equated rivers to the aspects of life, time, love, death, and every other indescribable quality which evokes human life. This analogy is because a river exemplifies characteristics that can be ultimately damaging or explicitly peaceable. In the poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Langston Hughes cites all of these qualities in addition to relating the relatedness between rivers to the relatedness between humans.  Symbolism embodies Hughes’ literary poem through his use of the river as a timeless symbol. A river can be portrayed by many as an everlasting symbol of perpetual and continual change and of the constancy of time and of life itself.

In “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” the river stands as a symbol of endlessness, geographical awareness, and the epitome of the human soul. Hughes uses the literary elements of repetition and simile to paint the river as a symbol of timelessness. This is evident in the first two lines of the poem. Hughes introduces this timeless symbol, stating, “I’ve known rivers: // I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins” (Hughes PG#). These opening lines of the poem identify that the rivers Hughes is speaking about are older than the existence of human life. This indicates the rivers’ qualities of knowledge, permanence, and the ability to endure and outlast humanity. Humans associate ‘age’ with these traits and the longevity of a river makes it a force to be reckoned with. The use of a simile in the line of the poem is to lead the audience into the understanding that this is truly a contrast between that ancient wisdom, strength, and determination of the river and the same qualities that characterize a human being. The images portrayed in the poem by way of the imagery contained in the depiction of blood flowing through human veins is contrasted with the flow of rivers. The author is comparing the wisdom, strength, and determination of humans that flows through our veins to the wisdom, strength, and determination that flows through rivers in an eternal rush. As history runs through the rivers, it also runs through our veins making us who we are.

The author continues to relate not only his experiences, but also the human encounters with that of rivers. He uses the relationship between blood and water to suggest human roots and unison with the natural world; he additionally relates his experience with contentment to the serenity and universal connection, drawing the author not only to unity with the river, but also to his home continent of Africa: “I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. // I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. // I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. // I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln….” (HUGHES PG#). The author relates his experience in the Americas to those of his roots and experiences in Africa. The same water that flows in the rivers of Africa is the same water that flows down the Mississippi or courses through the Euphrates. Hughes attempts to relay this connectedness of the rivers from one continent to another to aid in demonstrating the shared blood that flows through the veins of all people. This relates to the eternal nature possessed by rivers in that they we are all eternally related, just as we are all eternally related through our DNA, through the blood that flows through our veins.  The connectedness shared through the enduring nature of a river is likewise shared through the eternal, procreative blood passed on from generation to generation, making the blood flowing through our veins effectively as eternal as the rivers’ waters.

The Embodiment of Hughes Poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is his symbolism through the word rivers. He shows how this word is timeless. Also, how this word is representative of time, life, death, and love. This analogy is because a river exemplifies characteristics that can be ultimately damaging or explicitly peaceable. In the poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Langston Hughes cites all of these qualities in addition to relating the relatedness between rivers to the relatedness between humans. Do you agree? What do you think Hughes was trying to accomplish trough relating humans to that of rivers.

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