“Who am I?” “Who are you?” Does anyone really know the answer to these questions? The answer is: very few. Very few people can develop a sense of self. The others, explore the meaning of identity. But what many people don’t understand is that each person’s self-perception is a unique combination of many identifications, identifications as general as a man or a woman, or as narrow as being part of a particular family. However, self-identity is usually defined by the recognition of one’s potential and qualities as an individual during social interactions. In Langston Hughes’ poem, Theme For English B and Ralph Ellison’s essay, “New York, 1936,” both the speaker and narrator construct their self-identification on the basis of various personality traits and …show more content…
He was baffled to witness the complete opposite in New York, especially in Harlem. Because the narrator came to New York during the Harlem Renaissance, he is immediately drawn to the people of Harlem because they share racial and cultural identifications. However, he is young and is still trying to determine if what he is seeing is too good to be true. Eventually, the narrator understands that regardless of race or gender, they’re all Americans with common likes and purposes. For example, the incident in the subway car, between a man and woman is “utterly confusing to [his] southern-bred idea of good manners.” He comes to conclusion, northern social equality is all forgotten when it comes to finding a seat in the subway. The narrator is surprised just to see the amount of people present on the subway car, but even more surprised to not see any sort of racism, due to the lack of usual rules of etiquettes. The narrator 's internalized aspects of the South taught him to keep certain things the same (being polite to women) but to let go of other things (sitting in the back of the bus due to