Essay Post 2

Bop

Langston Hughes

Bop is a piece that was written by the man, the myth and the legend, Langston Hughes, in 1949. This essay is about two men who have a conversation one day about a genre of music called be-bop. Langston Hughes is famous for his work and contribution to the Harlem Renaissance, a period in the 20th century when black people and black poetry had become popular in the United States. The purpose of this essay is to inform the audience about the effects racism had on the black community, and how it had become so engrained in the culture, a style of music was named after it. Living as a black man in the forties, it was difficult dealing with police. A character named Simple says it best when he says, “A dark man shall see dark days” (35). Between brutality from the police and segregation from some of the other white people at the time, days were dark for the dark man indeed. This essay was written for people who had heard of be-bop music, but not known the racist origins, so Hughes takes some time out with this piece to break it down. 

The ways that Hughes gets his point across are through the uses of colloquialisms and onomatopoeia. The colloquialisms come from a man named Simple, who is the man one doing most of the talking in this essay. His use of slang words like “Negro” and referring to the people as “folks” (“white folks” or “black folks”) make the conversation more laid back and informal. Some of the onomatopoeia used in this essay like, “bop” and, “‘ooool-ya-koo! Ou-o-o!” demonstrate the sounds that the black people would make and give us an idea of how this was translated into the music style of the day. With all of this put together, I’d say that Hughes efficiently gets his point across. He uses characters like Simple and the various rhetorical devices to the reality of life as a black man, and how this pain was turned into a lively and beautiful genre of music.