From the Dark Tower Literary Elements

The narration is in the first-person perspective with the speaker as a collective of black people experiencing racism. Their voice shows anger about the injustices of the past and some hope for a better future.

The poem is a sonnet and is made up of one octave and sestet. It is written in iambic pentameter. It follows an ABBA rhyme scheme in the first stanza and an AABBCC rhyme scheme in the second.

In the lines "The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, / White stars is no less lovely being dark," the speaker compares Black individuals to the dark in the night sky.

There is alliteration in the W, L, and A sounds of the lines "We were not made to eternally weep," "Not always countenance, abject and mute," "White stars is no less lovely being dark," and "And there are buds that cannot bloom at all."

N/A

Petrarchan sonnet

The poem is set in America at an unspecified time period during or after slavery.

Angry but hopeful

The protagonist of the poem is the Black community. The antagonists are their oppressors.

The speaker is infuriated by the oppression that persists for Black men and women and demands respect and recognition from white society.

The climax occurs at the end of the poem, when the speaker expresses hope for the future.

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

The speaker personifies the night by suggesting that its breast relieves the white stars.

N/A

N/A