Connections The poems “Theme for English B,” “I, Too,” and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” have a strong interrelated theme. In “I, Too” and “Theme for English B,” the narrators speak of the social injustices that are in the world and how they and their communities are affected by them; yet, they speak of how they and their oppressors are one and the same and someday the much needed social change will come. “Theme for English B” states “You are white-yet as part of me, as I am a part of you.” This statement is cemented in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” in which the narrator links all people together by marking the dawn of mankind and progressing through time, showing how they all came from the same place, and the other two suggest the paradox when some are treated as inhuman. However, “I, Too” suggests that those days will end stating “They’ll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed - I, too, am America.”
Audience
…show more content…
Most were written in the 1920s, when blacks were still treated as second class citizens, and Langston Hughes channels the feeling of inferiority and subordination into these poems. In “I, Too,” the narrator talks about the humiliation of being forced to sit at a kitchen table when their white employers have company over. And “Theme for English B” expresses the frustration of being looked down upon by the majority. These poems resonated with the many feelings that the black community experienced, and is the main reason Langston Hughes has become one the the most famous African American