Wednesday, October 15, 2014

How do the literary devices used in the poem "Life Is Fine" by Langston Hughes work together to convey meaning?

I think if you are looking for a message in this poem, it
has to concern the stubborn choice of the speaker to live in spite of what is happening
to his or her life and the recognition that, as it says in the final
stanza:



I
could've died for love--


But for livin' I was
born.



In a sense, the message
is one of hope as the speaker, and by implication we, as readers, realise that we could
die "for love," but actually there is something about the tenacity of the human spirit
that rejects such an easy escape, because we were born "for livin'," which means we have
to face the harships that life throws at us and endure them. However, in spite of these
massive hardships, the overwhelming message, conveyed through repetition, is that "Life
is fine!" and that, in a simile that conveys just how fine it is, we are told that life
is as "fine as wine." The poem ends with a recognition that life is hard and we will
suffer, but still the speaker will be "dogged" if we see him or her commit suicide. You
will want to comment on the use of the final simile and the repetition in how this
message is established and supported.

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