Emotional response

After reading Langston Hughes poem “Theme for English B” I felt a few different emotions toward this piece of writing. I have always enjoyed Hughes’ works since he deals heavily with the issue of race and being a voice for the people. Being part African-American has given me a greater respect for people of color that have succeeded in literature, politics, etc. Hughes’ words in “Theme for English B” paint such a vivid picture in my mind of what it would be like to be an extreme minority within a group of people. While reading this poem I felt empathy for this character, anger towards our society, and yet a sense of happiness.

 The main character in this poem is a young African-American man with a low income, pursuing higher education, and he gives us a glimpse into his life. I am a young half African-American woman with a low-income family, pursuing higher education and I definitely could relate to what the main character was saying. He mentions that he is the only colored person in his class and that can be uncomfortable in itself when no one looks like you. My skin is not very dark, but I have still felt like I did not belong or that I was the only half black and white person in the room. Since I am able to put myself in the character’s shoes, I understand what it feels like to be out of place in a sense. It made me sad that this character has to experience such a culture shock and a sense of being alone. Hughes writes heavily about race and how it is difficult that the instructor is white and the student is black; I primarily have only had white instructors so I could not empathize as much, but it still must be difficult.

I also felt a sense of anger towards the society that we live as I was reading. Our society can be so individualistic sometimes and we forget that despite what race you are, we are all American. Being an American unifies us all together and we are all a part of each other. It is so easy to classify ourselves by our differences and not by the things we have in common, and by doing so we separate ourselves even more. Hughes mentions in the poem that sometimes we do not want to be a part of each other and that is true, which is disheartening to hear. Obviously we do not live in a perfect world and there is conflict present, but I wish we were more accepting of things that are different. I was just angered by the fact that it is societal norm to reject things that are unfamiliar or different than what we are used to; it is not blatantly stated because it would be construed as racism, but it is still present.

Lastly from reading this poem I felt a sense of happiness. Within the poem I could see the main character was content and was going to continue living his life despite the obstacle he faces. While explaining what to write for his English class, the character lists things he likes to do which has nothing to do with race, but it is probably things that we as humans enjoy doing like sleep. Race is mentioned frequently, but for almost a whole stanza only common tasks are focused on. The character also explains the idea that just because he is another race does not mean that he does not enjoy the same things as other races, and the emphasis of this point leads me to believe that there is a sense of equality. From reading that specific stanza, it gave me a positive feeling and a sense that the character was going to be ok in the situation.

The emotions that I felt from this poem are contradictory in a way, but there were various factors influencing those emotions. Whether empathy, sadness, anger or happiness, these emotions are true. I did not think that I could feel so many different ways about one poem, but I guess that is better than not feeling anything at all towards it. Langston Hughes is a wonderful poet and I applaud him for evoking so many different responses for me.