As I Grew Older –Review for the test
Basic Understanding:
1. Who is the speaker?
2. What does he remember from his childhood?
3. What hides his dream?
4. What are the three time frames in the poem? What
happens in each one?
5. What happens to the speaker when the wall rises?
6. How does he try to get to his dream?
7. What happens as a result of his struggle?
HOTS Questions - Support your answers with examples
from the poem.
8. What does the speaker compare his dream to? Why?
9. What does the wall symbolize?
10. "help me shatter this darkness". How is this line
connected to the message of the poem?
11. What do the hands symbolize?
12. How does the tone of the poem change?
13. "I lay down…no longer the light of my dream …"
How do these lines connect to the main theme of the poem?
Extended HOTS Questions: Choose a Thinking Skill
from the list to help you answer the question.
1. Which Two words are repeated in the poem? Why are they
repeated?
2. What does the speaker feel when the wall rises?
3. How does the speaker plan to struggle the "wall"?
4. The speaker views life differently as he grows up. Explain.
5. Why does the speaker say "I'm black"?
6. How is the theme of segregation presented in the poem?
Bridging Text and Context:Write a passage connecting the
information to the poem.Support your answer with details
from the poem.
Langston Hughes (1902- 1967) was a famous AfricanAmerican poet who lived during a time of worldwide
racial oppression against black people. He was involved
in the civil rights movement and wrote protest poetry. He
believed that writing and art would bring about racial
equality.
Hughes was a part of the Harlem Renaissance as one of
the first poets to promote African-American culture, such
as jazz music, which is particularly loved for its elements
of free expression.
Until the end of the American Civil War (1865), in the
southern states African-Americans were held as slaves.
However, even after they were freed, they were not
treated as equals. Only one hundred years later, in
1950-1960, they began fighting for equal rights.
Text Analysis
The poem is about the inability to achieve childhood dreams because
of racism and prejudice. When the speaker was young, he had dreams
of achieving great things. His dreams were "Bright like a sun". As he
grew up, he experienced prejudice and racial discrimination, and his
naive and optimistic dreams were shattered. The racism and prejudice
that the speaker encountered because of his skin color are "the wall"
that grew higher until it blocked his childhood dreams, causing him to
live in a "shadow" of depression and despair. In the last stanza, the
poet commands his hands to break through the wall so that he can
overcome the prejudice and achieve his dreams.
The speaker believes he can break through the barrier of being born
with a black skin in a white-dominant society. Thus the poem ends with
a tremendous hope and strength. It also suggests that, even for older
people who seem to have lost sight of a dream, it is never too late to
fight for it.
The Theme of the poem
The poem is a comment not only on racial prejudice and discrimination
but any form of oppression that makes people unable to fulfill their
dreams, whether it is because of age, gender, nationality or religion.
The poem also suggests that people must believe in themselves and
stand up for themselves. The theme of the poem is the negative
effects of racism, prejudice and discrimination. Its message is that we
must take action against an unjust society, deal with prejudice and rise
above it. We can only rely on ourselves to do this.
Literary terms
Tone
As the poem progresses, the tone (mood) of the poem changes. In
lines 1-6, the speaker is naive, optimistic, innocent (Bright like the sunMy dream). In lines 7-16- the tone is depressing, angry (wall,
between me and my dream. Diminishing, Hiding, The light of my
dream). In lines 17-23- pessimistic, depressing, angry (shadow, No
longer the light of my dream, thick wall). In lines 24-33- the speaker
becomes hopeful (The whole stanza expresses hope that the
speaker can achieve his dream)
The poem's changing tone indicates the speaker's changing
perspective on life as he moves from childhood to young adulthood.
Lines 1-6 reflect the speaker's perspective as a child. Lines 7-16
reflect the moment when the speaker's perspective begins to change.
Lines 24-33 reflect the speaker's perspective now, meaning at the
time the poem was written.
Imagery : creating pictures in the mind of the reader
Then poem contains a powerful mix of light and dark images. (The
speaker's dream is Bright like a sun, The thick wall that keeps rising till
it touches the sky, the speaker lies in his shadow, the speaker's dark
hands that try to break the wall).
Light symbolizes dreams, hope, optimism, possibilities/ opportunities,
goodness, intellectual achievements, awareness (enlightenment).
Darkness, on the other hand, symbolizes prejudice, discrimination,
hatred, racism, evil, ignorance.
However, darkness does not always have a negative connotation in
the poem. The shadow and darkness caused by the wall do have a
negative connotation. However, the poet himself is black and he
makes reference to his "dark hands". The poet's / speaker's dark skin
color is the target of the prejudice to which he is so strongly against.
It is the darkness of prejudice that has a negative connotation, not his
dark skin color. The speaker believes he can break through the barrier
of being born with a black skin in a white-dominant society.
The poet uses the wall as a metaphor. The wall represents an
obstacle to the speaker's dream. Keeping in mind that the poet /
speaker was an African-American, the obstacle is racism, prejudice
and discrimination. The speaker says that the wall is blocking his view
of the sun. He means that he can't achieve his dream because of the
obstacles in his way. The wall is blocking him from reaching his dream.
The growing wall (the child's growing awareness of racial prejudice)
has caused the speaker's mood to change. As the wall grows, it casts
a shadow, which is the despair the speaker feels. The speaker is
completely overwhelmed by the prejudice and 'lies down in the
shadow". He feels defeated, unable to function and has given up hope
as result of the prejudice. However, the speaker is not going to give up
his dream. His hands are the "tool" that will break through the
metaphoric wall and destroy the hatred and prejudice. It is ironic that
these same hands represent the power that can bring him to his
dream.
Structure
The poem As I Grew Older echoes the free and individual
expressiveness of jazz. Jazz is a musical style that originated at the
beginning of the 20th century in black communities in the Southern
United States. It developed from the music sung by African slaves in
Southern America in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Jazz was based
on rhythmic innovations, repetitive musical phrases, improvisation and
self expression of the performer. These motives of Jazz music are
reflected in Hughes' poetry. The Poem is written all in one stanza, in
free verse, with irregular line lengths and no specific rhyme scheme.
Simple diction makes each word important and the themes clear.
Many words are repeated throughout the poem:
It was / I / me / my dream / dream / then / in front of / between / before
/ bright / light / sun / wall / rose / slowly / shadow / no longer the light /
black / dark / darkness / only / my hands / break/ shatter / smash / this
/ into a thousand.
Since there is no regular rhyme scheme, repetition helps create rhythm
and is also a linking device to help the reader remember the themes /
ideas discussed in the previous lines.
The rhythm of the poem reflects the speaker's emotions. At the
beginning, the speaker describes a childhood dream and the rhythm of
the poem is steady. Then he encounters a wall of oppression,
therefore lines 8-9, 12, 13 are extremely short, only one or two words,
breaking the steady rhythm, slowing down the pace of the poem and
emphasizing the painful experience of this time. As the speaker gets
more excited about breaking free from oppression, there are more
words in a verse and the rhythm speeds up ( verses 24-33).
In verses 24-33 the poet uses five exclamation marks. Exclamation
marks indicate emotion and energy or drive. They are also often used
for loud commands. The use of exclamation marks conveys the poet's
motivation to break out of his oppression. He takes authority,
commanding himself to act.
lines 5- 6 focus on the brightness of the sun. It shows that dreaming is
an important part of children's lives.
In lines 15-16 he shows how disappointing and frustrating adulthood
might be.
The height of the wall is greatly exaggerated to stress the enormity of
the obstacles black people faced in the days of social oppression in
America.