Hayes Life and Feelings in The Blue Terrance Essay

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In the 1970s, racism was a big issue. African-Americans experienced a lot of discrimination due to their skin color. There were specific toilets, buses, and schools for people who had black skin color; those people even had to live in particular areas. Because of such discrimination, African-Americans created their own culture through music, such as the blues and funk. Also, African-Americans wrote a tremendous number of literary works that described the sorrow and agony of black people. “The Blue Terrance” by Terrance Hayes is an example of such literature. Hayes talks about his life briefly and expresses his thoughts and feelings through the poem. Throughout “The Blue Terrance,” Hayes uses title, structure, form, and a metaphor of the color blue to talk about not only sorrow, but also freedom.

Hayes uses the color “Blue” in the title to show his pathos about racism. “Blue” is usually used as a metaphor for gloominess; therefore, it shows Hayes’s life was melancholy and lonely. The reason for his gloominess was likely his skin color and the way people treated him as a result. Terrance Hayes was born in 1971 in South Carolina as a black child. Before and after a few years he was born, especially in South Carolina, racism was the biggest problem that existed in society. Therefore, living in the South made Hayes be exposed to extreme racism throughout his life. In South Carolina, there were lots of racist policies until 1971, such as banning interracial dating (The Associated Press). Three men were killed because of racism in 1968 and murders and violence such as these were not uncommon at this time (Krajicek). Therefore, the writer must have had a tough childhood and experienced discrimination through his life, and it made him feel disconsolate. Also, by putting “The” in front of “Blue Terrance,” which refers to Hayes himself, the writer creates distance between the author (himself) and the speaker, “I,” so he can view his life more objectively. Hayes lets “I” talk about how the writer’s life was and how he feels. By using “The Blue” in the title, Hayes shows his sadness and creates an individual speaker.

The structure and form of the poem, a lyric poem in terza rima, help Hayes to illustrate the unique experience of his own and other African-Americans’ lives. A lyric poem is where the speaker expresses his or her strong thoughts and feelings. The poem is the story of Hayes’s life, and the speaker of the poem, the “I,” tells the writer’s feelings and experiences through the poem. The poem starts with how he struggled with racism when he was young.

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Hayes explains a list of small offenses that happened to him by the world:

If you subtract the minor losses,

you can return to your childhood too:

the blackboard chalked with crosses,

the math teacher’s toe ring. (Hayes)

As a black child, Hayes was a kid who “not even the buck- / toothed girls took a liking to,” possibly because of the color of his skin. Also, he shows the limitations of the opportunities he had: “I remember what the world was like before / […] How long has your door been closed?” (Hayes) Both the “closed door” and “dirty rag” he could own after wiping sweat from a righteous woman, function as metaphors to show an African-Americans’ real life in the 1970s. To describe the African-Americans’ harsh life more efficiently, Hayes uses a closed form called terza rima. Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern of a-b-a, b-c-b, c-d-c, and d-e-d. Terza rima is one of the strictest forms that the writer must keep all the rhymes, and Hayes shows black people’s restricted life through terza rima. Thus, Hayes uses structure and form to reflect his discrimination experiences and African-Americans’ lives.

“Blue,” by the way, does not only suggest gloomy images or feelings. “Blue” also refers to “the blues,” a music genre created by African-Americans at the end of the 19th century after their liberation. Blues expresses African-Americans’ sorrow and pain from discrimination. Hayes uses the blues to express his sadness from the rampant discrimination in his life. Also, he uses “funk,” which is another music genre that African-American musicians created by mixing of soul music, jazz, and rhythm and blues: “the match box, these bones in their funk / machine,” “Suppose you were nothing but a song / in a busted speaker?” (Hayes). Hayes melted his sadness, discriminatory experiences and culture into the poetry using the “blue” as a metaphor for blues. However, Hayes talks about not only sorrow….....

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