Theme for English B: Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Complexity of Power Dynamics

Complex power dynamics are at play from the very beginning of the poem, which opens not with the speaker’s words, but with the words of his teacher (lines 1–6):

The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it’s that simple?

Reading further, we quickly realize that the speaker is a young Black man, who is the only student of color in an English class being taught by an older white man. In this context, the teacher holds a great deal of power compared to the poem’s speaker. Hughes reflects this hierarchy by having the poem begin with the teacher’s assignment. Significantly, the assignment doesn’t just open the poem; it also instigates the poem. Rather than writing from his own internal impulse, the speaker only writes the poem because a white man instructed him to do so. That said, in the final line of the passage quoted above, the speaker subtly undermines his teacher’s power by questioning the assignment’s apparently straightforward logic: “I wonder if it’s that simple?” Taking his own question as a new point of departure, the speaker claims ownership over his own thinking and asserts his own voice within an otherwise complex power dynamic.

The Possibility of Speaking with an “American” Voice

In the final stanza of the poem, the speaker suggests the possibility of speaking with a single American voice. This suggestion arises from the question the speaker poses at the end of the second stanza: “So will my page be colored that I write?” (line 27). The third stanza then opens with his response to his own question: “Being me, it will not be white” (line 28). But the speaker immediately goes on to qualify this observation, indicating that his writing will not be “colored” in any straightforward way. He insists that his white instructor is “a part of me, as I am a part of [him]. / That’s American” (lines 32–33). In this sense, the speaker’s writing will be neither “white” nor “colored“—it will be a third thing that is not strictly about race. That is, it will be “American.” In saying this, the speaker entertains the idea that every American is steeped in the complexities of race, regardless of whether they identify as Black, white, or brown. Americans have much more in common than an emphasis on racial difference might otherwise suggest. For this reason, the speaker’s voice isn’t “colored.” It’s simply “American.”

The Need to Acknowledge Inequity

Although the speaker entertains the possibility of speaking with an “American” voice, he doesn’t shy away from the need to acknowledge race-based inequity. In the poem’s third stanza, just after he’s reflected on the relationship of mutual influence between himself and his teacher, the speaker recognizes that mutuality doesn’t ensure equality. For one thing, race relations in America are often antagonistic. As he puts it: “Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me. / Nor do I often want to be a part of you” (lines 34–35). For another thing, even though there does exist a relationship of mutual influence, it’s impossible to discount the reality that not all influence is equally powerful. The very fact that the poem opens with the teacher’s words rather than the speaker’s reflects the relative power and privilege of the teacher. The speaker explicitly acknowledges this unequal power dynamic as the poem reaches its conclusion (lines 37–40):

As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.

In other words, the speaker and the teacher do both learn from each other, but the context of that learning will always be skewed since the teacher’s privilege makes him “somewhat more free.”

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