As seen in “Theme for English B, it takes place in 1951, a time in which racism was experienced in everyday life. Also, how that title implies that the poem is about English class or something related. What got my attention when reading this poem was how it started with an instructor telling a young and colored student to write a poem at home. From the title of the poem I can tell that this is a student and a professor relationship. However, the student was not given a specific topic to write about. The next two lines, “And let that page come out of you- Then it will be true,” provides what he will be writing about, himself. Line six transitions to the student, now the speaker. The author has created a persona, which is a fictitious character …show more content…
He states he is twenty-two years old, I’m sure referring to his age. He then goes onto say that he is colored, which I assume means he is dark skinned. He says he’s from Winston-Salem, which I know is located in North Carolina. At the time this poem was written, in 1951, racism played a huge part in everyday life. Moving onto line eight and nine, he lets us know that he attended more than one schools. He describes the location of one of the schools. The first school he attended was in his home town in North Carolina. Then, in Durham, and afterwards to the college he received this assignment from, “on the hill above Harlem.” Also, I know Harlem is in New York so the college must be too. Line ten describes he is the only colored student in his class and that there was a huge racial barrier between colored and non-colored people. Showing in line eleven through fifteen shows us what routes he has to take to go home. He purposely uses five verses to list his walk home. I can tell that he does not live close the college as the other students might have. During that time he probably lived in the ghetto. Moving on to line sixteen “It’s not …show more content…
He’s in the stage of figuring himself out. Line nineteen describes the speaker wanting to be heard by the classmates. Next, line twenty he is unsure how all of us are separated. Verse twenty one starts off in an almost sarcastic tone. Then line twenty-two through twenty-six follows with doing things others (non-colored) would enjoy to do further implying that races should not be apart in the first place. However, verse twenty-seven says “So will my page be colored that I write?” The author is asking the question of whether or not when he turns his poem into his professor, if it will hold the same importance as if a non-colored student would turn theirs in. Transitioning to verse twenty-eight, “Being me, it will not be white,” I think the speaker is trying to say that because the poem was written by him, whether it is proper or not, will still be considered as a poem written by a “black” person. Verses twenty-nine and thirty-two goes even more in depth to his internal struggle of being colored. He is debating to himself that the paper won’t be white because it’s coming from him and then somewhat it will because the things he likes to do, non-colored like to do as well.
In conclusion, the poem was used as a key to unlock some of the thoughts the negro had concerning Africa. The negro in this poem was a representative of all negroes during this time; their thoughts and the their feelings toward Africa. Cullen’s usage of the literary devices allow for an effective expression of the meaning of this poem. Poems are intensified language of experience, so the devices assured the connection of the reader to the poem and the experience. This applies to many issues in society today because as beautiful as our country is there are still dark clouds that cover the very essence of what the states once stood
Poems are built with tradition, but in his case, the speaker wants to end tradition just as he wants to end racism. In line two and three, they both end with the same word which is called symploce. Symploce is a combination of anaphora and epistrophe which implies that these two lines are an important point of the figure of speech. The poem was written by stating a cause and effect. The line beginng with by is the cause and I being the effect. Its an explination of how he will fight social injustice. It also helps readers to use and understand the most effective way to fight social
A large portion of this poem is comparing the difference between black and white. In the poem it practically says “what if all the black is now white, and all the white is now black?”, then goes on to give some examples like “Black Presidents,
The division between whites and blacks was clearly prevalent and the United States of America was a racially discriminatory society reinforced by its racist laws. Hughes took the initiative to speak his mind via poetry, resulting in his piece “I, Too”. In this poem, Hughes clearly signifies one thing: Just because his skin color is different from whites, does not mean that they get to sing the National Anthem louder. Arguing that all American citizens are the same, disregarding their skin color, Hughes applies in this poem a master-slave relationship. The assumed white master shows disrespect to his servant by sending him away whenever visitors come over, because he is ordered to eat secluded from the company. However he seems to not be faze by this and actually finds it funny, supported by “But I laugh” (5). Furthermore, not only does he find amusement in this unpleasant situation, but the isolation has a positive effect on him “And grow strong” (7), implying that even though he submits to his master, his spirit will not be diminished.
In the poem it says on the first stanza in line one and two “Here on the edge of hell stands Harlem”. What part of Harlem? It doesn’t say. In the poem “The Weary blues” It states in stanza two, line one “Down on Lenox Avenue”. Now Lenox is a street in Harlem.
The structure of this poem is 3 stanzas with all the lines in the poem except Lines 9 and 15 in iambic tetrameter. In this metric pattern, a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total eight syllables. The internal structure of the poem is the narrator talking about the mask the African American people wear and the oppression that hurts them. Then the second stanza is sarcastic and negative towards the idea that it will ever change. Then the last stanza shows that they cling to Christ and the journey will be long.
Hughes states “By what sends the white kids, I ain’t sent: I know I can’t be president” (Lines 1-5). He is referring to the fact that he is not like many other kids due to his skin color and he knows he will not have a future because of it. In the lines three through six of the poem, he explains that the white kids are unaware of the things that bother him because they don’t bother the white kids, “when don’t bug kid’s sure bugs me” (Lines 6-7). He knows his life is much more difficult than white’s person life. Hughes writes about liberty and justice and how, even if it was promised, it was not given at all, “We Know everybody ain’t free” (Lines 9-10). Hughes makes fun of the idea that colored people are free, “Liberty and Justice, Huh! For all?” (Lines 14-15).
Race plays a big part in this poem. He speaks on Harlem and its culture and this environment but also about mutual interest with people
The two authors, Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown, both have earned the right to be included in the same category as white poets. They were both very important members of the Harlem movements. This movement is defined as a style that compares the similarities of the two different races, back and white. Both poets are considered dominant black poets and their works consist of day-to-day life of a typical African American man. These two poets discuss in very different ways the differences between white men and black men of their time.
All three of the poems discussed in this essay relate to the struggles suffered by African Americans in the late 18th century to the early 19th century in many different ways. They had to live under harsh
Through his poem “Theme for English B”, Langston Hughes expresses his will to exterminate discrimination by proving that despite different skin colors, Americans all share similarities and learn from each other. Langston wrote the poem in 1900, when black Americans were not considered Americans. He talks about a black student being assigned to write a paper about himself. The audience is thus the student’s professor – the representation of the white Americans. Since the professor said: “let that page come out of you---Then, it will be true.”, the student began wondering “if it’s that simple”. He then describes himself to explain why it isn’t simple: he is “twenty-two”, “the only colored in class”, and lives in the poor community Harlem.
This poem is written from the perspective of an African-American from a foreign country, who has come to America for the promise of equality,
The poem opens: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix…” Born in
My background as a tenacious student and a minority has allowed me to connect to the poem in ways that I could very much relate to. I have personally lived through the motions of life that he refers to in “Theme for English b”.Langston Hughes’s poem is more about the differences he knows other people see in him or rather on him, and what they are missing. By doing this, Hughes make it clear that the color of his skin plays a crucial role in the way that people think he is like. He finishes by boldly stating what he had been
Main Idea: The poet, born in Jamaica and moved to America, has to go through the day to day struggles in order to tolerate the hate he receives only because of his race. The people do not see him for who he really is, however, he can see them for who they really are. Ultimately, he sees himself as better than his haters because he never gives into his rage like the people do.