Langston Hughes I Too

SWA: “I, Too” Langston Hughes “I, Too” by Langston Hughes is about how the speaker has been oppressed by society because of the color of his skin. An example of this oppression is when Hughes says “They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes,” in which the kitchen is showing the oppression because he is not allowed to eat with the family and their guest. This shows that African Americans were seen as not important to society and that society did not believe they should be equal with whites. Hughes also explores the concept of identity. He states that he is the “darker brother” which shows that he is African American. This poem also exemplifies poetry from the Harlem Renaissance because it represents some common themes found throughout

Besides, they’ll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed-” which comes after he is sent to the kitchen to eat. The Harlem Renaissance goes well within the context of Modernism because it can be perceived as taking for granted universals (disenchantment) for example people assuming that a white person’s way of thinking is universal when it is not considering there are more than just white people in the world. Modernist also moves away from the hierarchical way of life which could cause a sense of anxiety which leads to the oppressed people to have hope and the possibility that they will be equal. Also within the Harlem Renaissance period, poems include some type of change (dynamism) in the modern time which can be seen in the poems as times moves from slavery, to the civil rights movement, to finally having some equality. Hughes exemplifies this by the way he structures his poem. The structure of his poem fits the idea of modernism, but it has a unique structure also. He creates his own instead of using the traditional poem structure by having no rhyme scheme, having only a one-word line separate from the rest of the sentence, and having no distinct pattern with the