# Afraid explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by Langston Hughes.

## What happens

The poem expresses a deep sense of isolation and fear felt by African Americans in the modern urban landscape, drawing a parallel between their current loneliness among skyscrapers and the ancestral cries of their forebears in Africa.

## Themes in this chapter

### Urban Life and Alienation

The speaker's fear and loneliness among skyscrapers highlights the disconnection and isolation of city life.

### Racial Identity and Oppression

The link between the ancestors' cries in Africa and the modern speaker's fear underscores a shared racial history of oppression and displacement.

## Character check-ins

### Unknown

The collective 'we' who cry among the skyscrapers, feeling alone and afraid.

## Key lines

> We cry among the skyscrapers / As our ancestors / Cried among the palms in Africa

We weep in the towering city just as our forebears wept in their homeland.

_Connects contemporary urban despair to ancestral suffering._

> Because we are alone, / It is night, / And we’re afraid.

Our fear comes from being isolated in the darkness.

_Emphasizes the loneliness and fear that pervade the speaker's experience._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_15_se/chapters/afraid
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_15_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_15_se/chapters