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Prompt: In a well-developed essay, analyze how both authors use literary and poetic devices to convey the idea of the American Dream

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Prompt: In a well-developed essay, analyze how both authors use literary and poetic devices to convey the idea of the American Dream. Cite textual evidence.

Allusion – a reference to another subject, person, place, event or literary work in the text.

Diction-the choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.

Juxtaposition - when a person, place, or concept is placed as a parallel to another person, place, or concept to highlight the similarities/differences. Hyperbole - an exaggeration or overemphasis of a statement.

Simile - comparing two unlike using like and as.

Symbol - using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning.

Metaphor - comparing two unlike without using like or as.

Tone - the attitude of the author through the text.

Imagery - when the author uses words and/or phrases to help the reader visualize what they are reading.    Reading 1

Background: Behold the Dreamers, chronicles the story of Jende Jonga, a man from Cameroon who immigrated to the U.S. in search of the American Dream for him and his family. Despite working hard, Jende encounters a number of obstacles while living in America. One of the biggest obstacles he faces is getting deported back to Cameroon after being unable to obtain a green card. Being deported back to Cameroon means the end of his American Dream: the end of his dreams of financial freedom, happiness, and the ability to provide his children with endless amounts of opportunities.

Behold the Dreamer by Imbolo Mbue, pg 59-61(excerpt)

What he’d lived in fear of the past three years had happened, and the powerlessness was worse than he’d imagined. If not for his pride, he would have cried, but tears, of course, would have been useless. His days in America were numbered, and there was nothing salty water running out of his eyes could do.

Upper West Siders strolled by. MTA buses stopped by. A chaos of kids on scooters rushed by, followed by three women—their mommies or grandmas or aunties or nannies—cautioning them to slow down, please be careful. Mighty would soon be done with his piano lesson. The nanny would be calling in about twelve minutes to ask Jende to bring the car to the front of the

   

 teacher’s building. What should he do in those twelve minutes? Call Neni? No. She was probably on her way to pick Liomi up from his after-school program. Call Winston? No. He was working. It wouldn’t be right to call him with bad news at work; besides, there was nothing he could do. There was nothing anyone could do. No one could save him from American Immigration. He would have to go back home. He would have to return to a country where visions of a better life were the birthright of a blessed few, to a town from which dreamers like him were fleeing daily. He and his family would have to return to New Town empty-handed, with nothing but tales about what they’d seen and done in America, and when people asked why they’d returned and moved back into his parents’ crumbling caraboat house, they would have to tell a lie, a very good lie, because that would be the only way to escape the shame and the indignity. The shame he could live with, but his failings as a husband and father ... He looked out the window at the people walking on Amsterdam Avenue. None of them seemed concerned that the day might be one of his last in America. Some of them were laughing. That night, after he’d told Neni, he watched her cry the first tears of sadness she’d ever cried in

America.

“What are we going to do?” she asked him. “What do we have to do?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Please dry your eyes, Neni. Tears are not going to help us right now.”

“Oh, Papa God, what are we going to do now?” she cried, ignoring his plea. “How can we keep on fighting? How much more money do we need to spend now that it’s going to be a court case?”

“I don’t know,” he said again. “I’m going to call Bubakar soon to discuss more. The news hit me so bad ... it was as if someone was pressing a pillow against my face.”

They would have to use the money they had saved, they agreed. All of it: the couple thousand dollars they had put away by sticking to a monthly budget and which they hoped to one day put toward a renovation of his parents’ house, a down payment on a condo in Westchester County, and Liomi’s college education. If they had to get rid of their cable and Internet and take second jobs, they’d do that. If they had to go to bed hungry, they’d do that, too. They would do everything they could to remain in America. To give Liomi a chance to grow up in America.

“Should we tell Liomi now, so he can be prepared if we have to leave?” Neni asked.

Jende shook his head and said, “No, let him stay happy.”

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 Reading 2

Let America Be America Again

Langston Hughes - 1902-1967

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars. I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean— Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

  

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 Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That’s made America the land it has become.

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,

And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we’ve dreamed

And all the songs we’ve sung

And all the hopes we’ve held

And all the flags we’ve hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again— The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose— The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,

We must take back our land again, America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath— America will be!

 Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

Prompt: In a well-developed essay, analyze how both authors use literary devices to convey the idea of the American Dream? Cite textual evidence.