Life Is Fine
I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.
I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.
But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!
I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.
I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.
But it was High up there! It was high!
So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born
Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.
Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!
“Life is Fine” is a perfect example that demonstrates an endless
scenario when people come to death as a permanent solution for
everything. The poem consists six stanzas, and the first four stanzas
are the depictions of the speaker’s attempts to commit suicide. His
determination is highlighted in the first stanza, particularly in these
two sentences: “I tried to think but couldn’t; So I jumped in and sank.” Through
this, his intellectual impasse- a principle that leads to him
committing suicide is illustrated. However, his attempt fails
eventually: “I came up once and hollered! I came up twice and cried!”
Based on this, the audience can interpret that he in fact tries to
drown himself twice before he gives up and starts crying. At this point,
the speaker’s strong emotion about the situation he’s struggling with
is evoked. He then again makes an effort to kill himself by jumping from
a sixteenth floor of a building in the third stanza. This is also when
the audience comes to know the reason for his decision to seek the
death: “I thought about my baby -And thought I would jump down”.
Obviously, the loss of love is the motivation that pushes him to the
edge. Nevertheless, at the end the speaker is still alive as he finally
realizes the sacredness of life enough to acclaim: “Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine.”
The theme of this poem refers to the disillusion that people often have about death. When there is something extremely difficult and melancholic which may seem impossible to overcome, death is often considered the only outlet. People find death as a quick and coward means to run away from the pains that life creates. However, the poem reveals an opposite side of this matter: it is actually harder to keep moving on than to give up on life. By demonstrating how the man struggles with forcing himself to death and at the end becomes more conscious of what he has been given, the poet introduces the concepts of life being “fine as wine” and how people should appreciate it instead of easily giving it away.
Hughes structures the poem as a monologue where the speaker narrates his development from being in total despair to self- enlightenment. The poem is also didactic since it teaches the audience a moral about life appreciation. By linking the speaker’s situation in the poem with their own experiences in encountering similar miseries, the audience can easily interpret the message that the poet is trying to convey through his poem.
The rhyme scheme in this poem is simple. The last word in the second line rhymes with the last word in the fourth line, therefore the scheme is recognized as A-B-C-B. However, what give the poem individuality are the three refrains where each of them is placed after every two stanzas. The exclamation marks in the refrains are used to express the speaker’s vehement emotions towards the pain as well as the struggles he is getting through when trying to commit suicide. The similarities between the first two refrains: “But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!”and “But it was High up there! It was high!” demonstrates the speaker’s fear as he almost experiences the frightening features of death. The word “but” also reveals the speaker’s effort to explain why his determination fails as death approaches him.
In the first two refrains, personification is used. It is not common to see such adjectives like “cold” and “high” to be written in capitals. Therefore, the purpose of this is to give those adjectives significant positions as to give people names. This technique creates an interpretation that Cold and High are in fact the two faces of the Death. Another poetic device in “Life is fine” is simile. The speaker’s comparison of life being “fine as wine” in the third refrain evokes the speaker’s transformation from a suicidal weakling who appears in the opening of the poem to such an optimistic man at in the end. Moreover, language use in this poem is also noticeable since “gonna”, an example of colloquial English language, is present in the last line of the sixth stanza. By including this specific language, Hughes aims to make his piece of work more engaging to the audience, particularly the Black American community who is known to have created this distinguished language.
The tone of Hughes in this poem is forceful and bitter, but yet critical. He profoundly depicts the speaker’s hardships by letting the man open express his melancholy to the audience. The bitterness in the poet’s tone is evoked when he emphasizes the unavoidable failure when the speaker tries to kill himself twice. At the same time, Hughes also criticizes humans’ superficiality through the disregard of life that the speaker shows in the poem. Hence, the mood created is realistic and gloomy at first but it becomes more positive as the speaker finally realizes that “life is fine”. The audience is taken through the changes of mood from extreme pessimism to optimism as the speaker desperately seeks for death at the beginning and then in the end becomes more conscious of how lucky he still is as he admits: “So since I’m still here livin’, I guess I will live on.”
“Life is fine” by Langston Hughes successful conveys one of the most fundamental humanity’s cognitions: life is sacred and we should not give it away no matter what. Through the situation that is brought out in the poem, Hughes depicts death as the only escape from the reality. Life and death may seem to be two extremely opposite concepts, but if humans could not be enlightened soon enough; the distance between life and death is just a jump away as described in the poem. “Life is fine” not only addresses a typical scenario when people comes to death as an option to end everything but it is also a meaningful lesson for everyone to reflect on themselves.
