Advertisement For The Waldorf-Astoria

Read 'Advertisement For The Waldorf-Astoria' by 'Langston Hughes' and provide your summary and literary analysis in the comments section below.

Advertisement For The Waldorf-Astoria by Langston Hughes

 Fine living . . . a la carte?
 Come to the Waldorf-Astoria!

 LISTEN HUNGRY ONES!
Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the
 new Waldorf-Astoria:

 "All the luxuries of private home. . . ."
Now, won't that be charming when the last flop-house
 has turned you down this winter?
 Furthermore:
"It is far beyond anything hitherto attempted in the hotel
 world. . . ." It cost twenty-eight million dollars. The fa-
 mous Oscar Tschirky is in charge of banqueting.
 Alexandre Gastaud is chef. It will be a distinguished
 background for society.
So when you've no place else to go, homeless and hungry
 ones, choose the Waldorf as a background for your rags--
(Or do you still consider the subway after midnight good
 enough?)

 ROOMERS
Take a room at the new Waldorf, you down-and-outers--
 sleepers in charity's flop-houses where God pulls a
 long face, and you have to pray to get a bed.
They serve swell board at the Waldorf-Astoria. Look at the menu, will 
you:

 GUMBO CREOLE
 CRABMEAT IN CASSOLETTE
 BOILED BRISKET OF BEEF
 SMALL ONIONS IN CREAM
 WATERCRESS SALAD
 PEACH MELBA

Have luncheon there this afternoon, all you jobless.
 Why not?
Dine with some of the men and women who got rich off of
 your labor, who clip coupons with clean white fingers
 because your hands dug coal, drilled stone, sewed gar-
 ments, poured steel to let other people draw dividends
 and live easy.
(Or haven't you had enough yet of the soup-lines and the bit-
 ter bread of charity?)
Walk through Peacock Alley tonight before dinner, and get
 warm, anyway. You've got nothing else to do.

Form: Free verse

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