34 pages • 1 hour read
There Was a Party for Langston
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Literary Devices
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaSymbols & Motifs
The Library
The motif of the library is a repeating image throughout the book, and it helps frame the book’s three themes. It conveys Artistic Inspiration and Its Influence because “all the best word makers [a]re there” at the library (28). Various books listen in on the party, and all the book authors whom the text illustrates are Langston’s various “word-children,” showing the effect of his legacy.
This motif helps emphasize the importance of Learning About Cultural History and Heritage because it is specifically identified at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a leading institution that preserves and celebrates African American and African identities and experiences. Everyone at the party is gathered to celebrate the opening of the Langston Hughes Auditorium; Langston is an important figure within the genre 20th-century poetry broadly and was a central voice in Harlem and Black life at the time.
Finally, the motif of the library thematically contributes to The Importance of Black Joy: It is the site of a “party,” a “jam in Harlem” (7). People are not gathered somberly but rather in celebration of a cultural icon.
The Cage and the Bird
When the narrator discusses how Maya transforms words, an illustration shows the word “cage” forming the shape of a golden cage. It also shows a bird flying out of this cage. This is an allusion to Maya Angelou’s 1969 autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and her poem “Caged Bird.” In both works, the cage is a symbol of oppression and systemic racism, while the free bird symbolizes increases in civil rights, freedoms, and liberties for Black Americans.
Maya’s autobiography contains the recurring image of a bird struggling to leave its cage, while her poem juxtaposes a free bird and a caged bird. She describes how “the caged bird sings of freedom” (Angelou, Maya. “Caged Bird.” Poetry Foundation), emphasizing the continued struggle for racial and gender equality well into the 20th century. In There Was a Party for Langston, the narrator writes that Maya’s work makes “the word cage feel like a place far far far away” (35). The bird flying away from the cage in the illustration shows how Maya has contributed to equality and freedom with her work so that the narrator feels further away from the symbolic “cage” than the generations that came before.
Dancing
Dancing is a symbol of several interrelated concepts: joy, celebration, and connection. Dancing supports the theme of The Importance of Black Joy. The book describes Langston, Maya, and Amiri as three creatives who could take systemic racism and oppression and create “laughter,” liberation, and cultural pride—which also supports the theme of Learning About Cultural History and Heritage. Their dancing inside the library symbolizes their joy and celebration of Langston’s legacy.
In one image, Amiri is dancing, with his arms and legs both outstretched in an “X” shape. This symbolizes his connection to the civil rights leader Malcolm X, who he dedicated many of his poems to and whose assassination changed his life and values. In the illustration, the light in front of Amiri makes him cast a huge shadow on the wall. The shadow cast by his dancing form symbolizes the significant poetic legacy that he left behind, which contributes to the theme of Artistic Inspiration and Its Influence Across Generations.
Dancing also symbolizes the connection between Maya and Amiri, which explains how words “dance” together to create new meanings. The narrator says, “Maya and Amiri danced, like the best words do, together” and then begins repeating, “to gather, together, to gather, TOGETHER!” (48-49). This wordplay, coupled with an image of Maya and Amiri dancing, shows how words themselves can dance and cooperate, as the narrator uses wordplay and repetition of the words “to gather” and “together,” emphasizing connection, collaboration, and celebration.
Unlock all 34 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Jason Reynolds
