Analysis
Refugee in America shows the emotional upheaval that resulted from being free but on equal in one's own country. Hughes analysis the meaning of the words "freedom" and "liberty" from an Afrian American's point of view in America. Freedom is used as meaning: without physical restraint or oppression; liberty represents a persons rights and control over one's own actions. The use of freedom in the first stanza indicates that the release from the bonds of slavery and a new physical freedom that the narrator's ancestors did not have. However, liberty has not yet been given to the African American community. Freedom has been a release from the heavy chains, but the narrator is still held by a rope without complete control of his own actions.
The tone of the first stanza is joyous for the freedom from the chains of slavery, but the second stanza gives much more depressed tone because his liberty is still controlled under the thumb of the white man. The lines, "If you had known what I knew You would know why," gives a mysterious sense to the poem because it does not give the reader specifics as to why liberty makes the narrator cry. The lines allow the reader to imagine the horrors the narrator may have gone through or is currently going through, and, thus, creates a stronger link of empathy between the reader and the narrator. Through this link the reader is left feeling a sense of hopeless, as though there liberty, too, was not full theirs.
The poem follows an end rhyme scheme of ABCB CDED, and no set rhythm. The metaphor "On my heart-strings freedom sings" shows the extend to which the narrator is grateful to be free, and it emphasizes the joyous tone of the first stanza. It also emphasizes the more depressed tone of the second paragraph why providing a greater variation between the two, for being to point of singing out and crying are on complete opposite sides of the spectrum of emotional responses.
The tone of the first stanza is joyous for the freedom from the chains of slavery, but the second stanza gives much more depressed tone because his liberty is still controlled under the thumb of the white man. The lines, "If you had known what I knew You would know why," gives a mysterious sense to the poem because it does not give the reader specifics as to why liberty makes the narrator cry. The lines allow the reader to imagine the horrors the narrator may have gone through or is currently going through, and, thus, creates a stronger link of empathy between the reader and the narrator. Through this link the reader is left feeling a sense of hopeless, as though there liberty, too, was not full theirs.
The poem follows an end rhyme scheme of ABCB CDED, and no set rhythm. The metaphor "On my heart-strings freedom sings" shows the extend to which the narrator is grateful to be free, and it emphasizes the joyous tone of the first stanza. It also emphasizes the more depressed tone of the second paragraph why providing a greater variation between the two, for being to point of singing out and crying are on complete opposite sides of the spectrum of emotional responses.