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Landlord's Ballad By Langston Hughes

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Landlord's Ballad By Langston Hughes
Landlord’s Ballad

In the poem Landlord’s Ballad Langston Hughes writes about the struggles of a man being treated unfairly by his landlord. The poem also shows that the Landlord will not fix the problems the house has, even though the man asked the Landlord to fix them. The poem then goes in to how the Landlord raised the rent and how the man did not take that kindly. Sadly, in the end, the man is arrested in the last stanza.
I believe the man in the poem was Langston Hughes. I think its Langston Hughes because the poem says the man was African American, and so was Hughes. Yes, it could be anyone, but why wouldn’t Hughes write about his own struggles? The poem is also in the first person not second or third. That is why I think it’s Hughes
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I can see the broken steps, I imagine concrete steps ground down from rain and frequent use. I can also see the edges falling apart and very loose. I also see the roof of the house, with a hole in it. I can see a bucket underneath catching water as it falls from rain. The picture is kind of sad in a way, how people can live in the conditions he lives in. It effects the poem greatly; it shows how unfair it is that the landlord won’t even try to fix the wreck of the house. This helps the reader understand how the author, Hughes, feels.
In the poem there are many literary terms, one of the main ones I found was hyperbole. In the fifth stanza, Hughes wrote “Come and get this man! He’s trying to ruin the government and overturn the land!” I feel like this is very exaggerated since the reason he thinks this is because the landlord is kick Hughes out of the land. By doing this, the landlord isn’t really ruining the government but to Hughes the man is. The only sound effects in the poem is the repeating of words, throughout the whole poem the word landlord is repeated many times. This is really the only sound effects being used in this poem. But what sounds are there do help with the poem. The repeating of landlord makes it sound like Hughes is writing a letter to his landlord. I think this makes the poem more unique than a regular

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