..In a novel, short story, or poem, any writer can become part of the work by assuming a persona that may or may not resemble his or her own in real life. The writer may even take the part of an animal or thing. In "Cross," Langston Hughes, the son of two black parents, assumes the persona of a person with a white father and a black mother. Doing so enables him to present with the force of first-person point of view what he believes are the thoughts and conflicts of another person. In the poem "My Last Duchess," Robert Browning assumes the persona of a proud Italian duke who may have murdered his wife. In the poem "Grass," Carl Sandburg assumes the persona of grass that grows over a battlefield. In the short story "The Black Cat," Edgar Allan Poe assumes the persona of a madman. In the novel Moby Dick, Herman Melville assumes the persona of a young seaman on a whaling ship.