Langston Hughes was of African and Latin descent, this afforded him the outlook of both races and the difficulties of living in a society that had so much racism. However, Hughes grew up very educated and even went to college. Hughes wanted to help fix the rift between being black or white, or any other race, and he tried to do this using his literary works. ("Langston Hughes Biography - Life, Children, Parents, Name, Story, History, School, Mother, Book, Information, Born, College") One of his poems, Theme for English B, is directed towards helping to mend the rift between races by noting that we are all Americans and a part of each other.
What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be black or white? These were questions that Hughes probably asked himself a dozen times and this poem is his answer. Hughes sets the introduction of the poem identifying that his instructor wants him to go home and to write about himself. None-the-less, Hughes wonders if it is that simple since he is only twenty-two, lives in Harlem and is the only black person in his class at the college that he attends as noted in these lines “Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you--- / Then, it will be true.” “I wonder if it’s that simple? / I am twenty-two, colored….” “I am the only …show more content…
In effect, he is showing the reader that it doesn’t matter what color you are, because you can like the same things. But then with his next lines he sends the point home, using the color of the page as a guide of sorts. Since the paper is white it is a part of the instructor, however since he was the one writing about himself and his life, it is also a part of him. Therefore, the paper is a part of them both and that is
What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be black or white? These were questions that Hughes probably asked himself a dozen times and this poem is his answer. Hughes sets the introduction of the poem identifying that his instructor wants him to go home and to write about himself. None-the-less, Hughes wonders if it is that simple since he is only twenty-two, lives in Harlem and is the only black person in his class at the college that he attends as noted in these lines “Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you--- / Then, it will be true.” “I wonder if it’s that simple? / I am twenty-two, colored….” “I am the only …show more content…
In effect, he is showing the reader that it doesn’t matter what color you are, because you can like the same things. But then with his next lines he sends the point home, using the color of the page as a guide of sorts. Since the paper is white it is a part of the instructor, however since he was the one writing about himself and his life, it is also a part of him. Therefore, the paper is a part of them both and that is