Question

1. “Dream Variations” by Langston Hughes and “The Tropics in New York” by Claude McKay both depict a longing for another place. What are the places and what do they represent?

Answer 1

In "The Tropics of New York," the narrator talks about a place where trees bear a lot of fruit. Cluade McKay was born in the West Indies where the place was loaded with trees just like the ones he describes in the first part of his poem. Also, McKay moved to America later on in his life. At the end of the poem, McKay says "And, hungry for the old, familiar ways/ I turned aside and bowed my head and wept" so we can assume that the narrator of the poem misses his past (which was in the West Indies, where McKay was born) because his present does not contain the "fruits of his labor." In Dream Variations by Langston Hughes, I"m not really sure. This poem is more complex, but the tone of this poem sounds like somebody who wants to escape it all and go to a place where things are simpler. Also, there is a racial vibe in the poem. Hughes uses "To whirl and to dance/ Till the white day is done" in the first stanza, and contrasts it with "Night come tenderly/Black like me" so I am assuming he wants the "white day" to be over so that he can rest with his fellow blackness.