From the Dark Tower by Countee Cullen and As I Grew Older...

Two poems titled â€Å"From the Dark Tower† by Countee Cullen and â€Å"As I Grew Older† by Langston Hughes. Both of these poems came from the Harlem Renaissance Era and they deal with the hard times African Americans faced in society beginning during the 1920’s. Hughes and Cullen put together these ideas in two different methods; however, the underlying messages were very alike. When I first read the poems, I noticed how both of the speakers found the tremendous challenges all African Americans had gone through. The speaker of â€Å"From the Darker Tower† identifies as someone who endures this struggle as well because he says, â€Å"we were not made eternally to weep,† which did not only prove that the speaker is an African American but also builds trust between the readers and the speaker by showing that he is feeling the horrible pain of discrimination and that they are all alone in this battle. The speaker of Hughes’ poem uses the pronou n â€Å"I† such as in the line, â€Å"†¦I had almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, and then when the wall rose†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and although this establishes the fact that he’s an African American as well, it shows the readers the struggle of an individual opposed to that of the struggle for the entire race. I also felt that the poems were appealing and insightful because of the differences they had in common and how the use of different symbolic objects can transmit a similar message. For example, at first, I did not comprehend the connection between the titles