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The Negro Speaks of Rivers By Langston Hughes

African American literature is rife with references to water that become symbolic when considered in the context of each work and in the context of each other.

“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is a poem by Langston Hughes (141). The poem is about rivers and their symbolic connection to Hughes’ heritage. Another work entitled “Sinking Of The Titanic,” is a folk ballad, this version written as heard by Langston Hughes, about the only black man on the Titanic swimming to safety and ignoring authority figures who offer him money in exchange for his aid in getting to safety (366-367). The water in both of these works serves a symbolic purpose that relates between the two pieces with similar meanings and a wider cultural context.

Inspirational Illustration of The Negro Speaks Of Rivers, Langston Hughes

In both “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “Sinking of the Titanic,” water symbolizes freedom or a pathway to freedom. Water also symbolizes pride, heritage, justice, and equality between the two pieces. Water becomes a sort of ally in this literature, carrying a positive though perhaps dangerous connotation that appears in the cultural consciousness throughout the body of African American literature.

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Works Cited

  1. 01. Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. Boston, Beacon Press, 1979.
  2. 02. Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Speaks Of Rivers." The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke, Atheneum, 1992, 141.
  3. 03.Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. New York, Vintage Books, 1977
  4. 04. Sinking Of The Titanic. "The Book of Negro Folklore, edited by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps, Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1958, 366-367.
  5. 05.Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. AMS Press, 1967.
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