A comparative analysis of Harlem and Altar topic, thee and figurative language-英语论文.docVIP

A comparative analysis of Harlem and Altar: topic, theme and figurative language This essay will look at two poems, ‘Harlem’ by Langston Hughes and ‘Altar’ by Marilyn Chin and analyzes the topics, the themes and figurative languages, especially in the use of figurative language. The aim of this paper is to compare the two poems and find the similarity of them which is topic and the differences of them which are theme and the use of figurative language. Both poems ‘Harlem’ and ‘Altar’ have a similar topic that is about the American dream. The readers can find that from the following examples. In the ‘Harlem’, the first stanza ‘what happens to a dream deferred?’ the reader can know that Hughes is interested in a dream in his poem. Also, from the word ‘deferred’, we can find something negative, which is able to be explained that Hughes’ dream can’t be finished so it has to be deferred. The same example could be find in last stanza ‘Or does it explode?’ after ‘explode’, we get nothing. So, the dream or goal is maybe just an ideal but couldn’t be done. Then, link the title of the poem ‘Harlem’ which is a small town in New York, we can get the answer that is the topic of this poem is about a negative American dream. Similarly, the topic of ‘Altar’ is also about the American dream, this can be seen in the fifth line ‘the Golden Mountain Edition’ that is a kind of newspaper in California, the place is located in northwest of America. Then, the second line of third stanza of the poem ‘who danced around that immigrant dream’, the readers can understand that the poem is about an immigrant dream of America. Again, by the last line of the second stanza ‘last cry’, it sounds like something negative, we could imagine that if a person just has a ‘last cry’ but without anything, it will be very sadly. In this way of thinking, the topic of ‘Altar’ is also about a negative American dream. Therefore, we should admit that the two poems ‘Harlem’ and ‘Altar’ have a similar top