Theme For English B Analysis
The poem “Theme for English B”, written by Langston Hughes, is a narrative from the point of view of a black student on his first day of English B. Throughout the poem the speaker addresses his anxieties about how the class will go. The poem is set around the time that black students were first being allowed into colleges, this being a major reason he is worried that no one will respect him. As sad as it is, people tend to judge based on appearance, and while I face this issue because of my piercings and tattoos those are things that I can control. Skin color is not something that can be changed simply to avoid judgment. The narrator has another cause of worry in the age difference between he and the other students. If an age difference is
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Most of these worries are based off of the fact that he is a black man in an incredibly racist time period, giving him valid concerns that his classmates and his professor will not respect him or even expect him to fail. Being a white man, I will never fully understand how the narrator feels, but there are plenty of other things I can relate to in the poem. Often times people have judged me based off my appearance without getting to know me, and I understand how that can feel even though my appearance is my choice. Not only is he worried about the racial differences between he and the other students, there is also an age gap present where it is most likely that he is the oldest student in his class. Considering I am already younger than most of the other freshman, any class that I have that is a large percentage of upperclassmen there is quite an age gap present. This can help me sympathize with what the narrator is going through despite the fact that I am on the opposite side of the spectrum. Even with all of these differences between the narrator and his classmates, the college experience that he describes is one that many students can relate to. Living away from home in a not so great place and struggling with finances is something anyone who has to pay their way through college goes through. The narrator and I may not have a lot in common, especially because of what a harder situation he faced as a black man in that time period, but in certain ways I can see where he is coming from with a sense of empathy as I have been through similar
Most of these worries are based off of the fact that he is a black man in an incredibly racist time period, giving him valid concerns that his classmates and his professor will not respect him or even expect him to fail. Being a white man, I will never fully understand how the narrator feels, but there are plenty of other things I can relate to in the poem. Often times people have judged me based off my appearance without getting to know me, and I understand how that can feel even though my appearance is my choice. Not only is he worried about the racial differences between he and the other students, there is also an age gap present where it is most likely that he is the oldest student in his class. Considering I am already younger than most of the other freshman, any class that I have that is a large percentage of upperclassmen there is quite an age gap present. This can help me sympathize with what the narrator is going through despite the fact that I am on the opposite side of the spectrum. Even with all of these differences between the narrator and his classmates, the college experience that he describes is one that many students can relate to. Living away from home in a not so great place and struggling with finances is something anyone who has to pay their way through college goes through. The narrator and I may not have a lot in common, especially because of what a harder situation he faced as a black man in that time period, but in certain ways I can see where he is coming from with a sense of empathy as I have been through similar