"The Weary Blues" (1926)
             At first glance, the poem "The Weary Blues" seems a poem with no associations with the notion of the American Dream. It appears to be a sad poem, filled with despair. But this poem also has a sense of hope, a sense that life might not be as gloomy as it seems. This contradiction in feelings, an apparent struggle of which feeling is mostly present in the speaker, is what links this poem to the notion of the American Dream. As also in the American Dream, this poem shows the ongoing struggle of keeping faith in yourself and what you believe in, even as the world around might try to keep you in a certain 'place'.
             "The Weary Blues", written in 1926, is both the title and the first poem of Langston Hughes' first volume of poetry. With this poem, Hughes created a testimony of his own black roots: the combination of blues aspects and literary talent. Although the blues does not solely originate from African music, it is seen as the 'typical' form of black music. The way we know the blues today stems mainly from the slaves in Northern America. They blended spiritual songs and African and European music into a musical style to reveal the hardship and extreme suffering they endured daily. This style is therefore rather melancholic and depressing. Slaves originally used these songs to lighten their daily work in the fields and to communicate amongst themselves. The roots of this oral tradition are revealed in the topics often sung about: murder, hatred, lost loves, hot sun and so on. It is believed that American troops brought the blues back with them to the USA after the years following WW I. As the American army was still segregated at that time, the white Southerners, who had been exposed to the blues before
             WW I, are believed to be the ones who introduced the 'other' Americans to this type of music. During the twenties, the ...