Another example of adverb phrase displacement is shown in the following datum.
Humbly I tried to learn, ln 3
Datum No.32 Datum No.32
is taken from a poem titled “Teacher”. Here, the adverb is put in front of the sentence. Since the word humbly should modify the word tried
to learn , it supposes to be written “I tried to learn more humbly” to emphasize
more on the persona‟s trying to learn.
Overall, there are 88 syntactic deviations that appear in the Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. The data taken as examples in this chapter have
represented seven types of syntactic deviations, which are: multiple negation, inversion, noun phrase displacement, preposition displacement, subject
displacement, adjectival phrase and adverb displacement.
2. The Author’s Purposes Wrote The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
Using Syntactic Deviations
As discussed in Chapter 2, Hughes portrayed the life of African-American. He made them into a collection of poems. The collection of the poems itself has
several topics as the major concern. They are: a to show jazz music that express as sorrow and loneliness; b to portray American dream; c to show African-
American‟s struggle; d to depict racism in America; e to face difficulty wisely; f to show self-actualization; and g to show the other problems faced by
African-American. The further explanations are discussed below.
a. To Show Jazz Music that Expresses as Sorrow and Loneliness
The first purpose of the author is to show jazz music that expresses sorrow and loneliness. The writer figures out five syntactic deviations, in the two poems
written by Langston Hughes, which belong to the first function. The syntactic deviations are found in the poem entitled
“Song for a Banjo Dance” and “The Weary Blues
”. The poem entitled
“Song for a Banjo Dance” describes the dancing steps and the persona wants his woman to dance too. It can be shown from the lines;
Shake your brown feet, honey, Shake you brown feet, chile, Shake your brown feet, honey. This poem also incorporates an element of African-American culture
at that time. The jazz music, on the other hand, can be seen clearly in the several
sentences such as The banjos sobbing low and The musics soft and wil. The tone of the music affects the way the woman dances. Since the music is soft and low,
the woman dances unenergetically. The jazz music with soft and low tone also expresses the sorrow and the hopelessness felt by an African-American woman
who danced at that time. Thus, the persona keeps asking the woman to dance in a more enthusiastic way.
The second poem which is used to show jazz music that expresses sorrow and loneliness can be seen in the poem entitled
“The Weary Blues”. This poem describes a sad song that sounds wearisome and it depicts an African-American
man‟s feeling towards his problem. Below is the poem. The poem can be read in datum 66SD01.
The writer figures out multiple negation and several displacements such as, noun phrase; prepositional phrase; subject and adverb. This poem is used to show
jazz music that expresses sorrow and loneliness and so are the syntactic deviations.
The multiple negations appear several times to describe the feeling of a persona when he listened to a jazz song. The writer figures out some multiple
negations in the sentences such as Aint got nobody in all this world; Aint got nobody but ma self and I aint happy no mo. From those multiple negations, it can
be seen clearly that the persona is not happy at all. He is desperate about his life as he has no one that accompanies him. The feelings occur as he listens to the jazz
music. The other displacements, such as subject displacement, are used to
emphasize certain activities. For example in the sentence Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor, the author wants to emphasize that the persona walks
slowly while singing the song. Another example is in the sentence In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan in
which the persona sings the song deeply, in a melancholy tune. The author emphasizes the way the persona sings at that time. Thus, the author used several
displacements to emphasize the persona‟s activities when he listened to a jazz song.
Overall, there are several syntactic deviations that are used to show jazz music that expresses sorrow and loneliness. They are found in the poem entitled
“Song for a Banjo Dance” and “The Weary Blues”. The syntactic deviations have
a role to emphasize the activities and describe the persona‟ feelings when he or
she is listening to a jazz music. In these two poems, the writer figures out the multiple negation and subject displacements as a means of emphasizing the
persona‟s activities and describing the persona‟s feelings.
b. To Portray American Dream
The second purpose of the author is to portray American Dream. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the term American Dream refers to a better and richer life
for everyone, and also the opportunity for each American in line with their ability or achievement Truslow, 1931. Hughes sees this term and puts it as one of the
concerns in writing his poem as he saw the unfair life of African-American people at that time.
The writer figures out ten poems containing twenty one syntactic deviations which are used to portray the American Dream. The titles of the poems
are: 1 My People, 2 When Young Spring Comes, 3 Wide River, 4 Good Morning Revolution, 5 Free Man, 6 Madam‟s Calling Card, 7 Yesterday and
Today, 8 Stranger in Town, 9 Deferred, and 10 Evening Song. Among those ten poems, the writer picks four poems to be discussed further.
The first poem to be discussed is a poem entitled “My People”. This poem
discusses someone who has a fair judgment on African-American. The persona wants to tell the readers that African-American is also as good as American. The
persona personates the African-American as a night sky full of stars and a sun in a daytime. The poem can be read in datum 31SD01.
