Langston Hughes’s poem “Theme for English B” regales the audience in a journey with the speaker as he deliberates its components that exist both internally and externally. Hughes harnesses varying literary devices to accentuate each step the speaker takes towards an unprecedented future. By means of varied syntax, context-specific imagery, and symbolism, the speaker builds on his personal reflections and discovers the concept of learning and aging, which ties into a universal theme. One predominant element used in “Theme for English B” would be symbolism of the speaker’s metaphorical journey. He materializes as a twenty-two year old “colored” man attending a largely white college in the mid-twentieth century. Throughout the second stanza,
