In the poem “Theme for English B”, Langston Hughes, after being prompted by his instructor, tries to write a page about his true self and in the process wonders what his true voice really is. As Hughes searches for his voice, the reader also gets a glimpse of the true Hughes. Although Hughes is African American, I believe that his voice in the poem is not entirely colored. However, it is not white either. A careful reading of the poem shows that Hughes’ voice is heavily influenced by his surroundings which include his colored background and an all white school and hence it ends up being neither colored nor white but neutral.
The poem “Theme for English B” tells a lot about Hughes and hence it is not possible to read to poem exclusive of the poet. As instructed by his teacher, Hughes sets out to try and discover his true self for his English B paper. He starts with talking about himself, his background and surroundings, but then feels that at twenty-two, it is not possible to know his true voice. As he starts thinking about all the things he likes to do, he realizes that he is not much different from his white friends. And so he starts wondering that since he likes all the things that “other folks like who are other races” (26), will it change his voice or will it remain colored. He realizes that because of his African American background, his voice cannot be white. Yet because of the influence of the white teacher, it cannot be completely colored. And it is here that we realize that Hughes voice is indeed neutral and not of any particular race.
The theory that Hughes voice is not colored is supported by a number of critics including David Jarraway in “Montage of an otherness deferred: Dreaming subjectivity in Langston Hughes”. Jarraway’s article can be considered the most authoritative when it comes to Hughes work. In a comprehensive essay, he has tried to identify Hughes’ voice in his poems. According to him, Hughes even incorporated the voice of black female in his writings (829). As he points out, everybody needs relationship (833) and in order to be white, there have to be black. These relationships also affect a person’s voice. Another relationship affecting Hughes’ voice is his relation with the thriving black community of Harlem. This relationship is clearly visible in the “Theme for English B” as Hughes takes the pains to describe Harlem and juxtapose it to the all white “college on the hill above Harlem” (p. 9). Thus, all these relationships “explode the notion of a racially pure self” (833) and Hughes’ voice is affected by all these influences resulting from these relationships. According to Hughes, his voice cannot be white because he is black, but his relationship with the instructor does not allow his voice to remain black either. Not only is his voice influenced by that of the white instructor, but through this interaction, the white instructor’s voice also no longer remains racially pure. Even though neither of them wants to be influenced by the other it remains a fact of life that they both have to live with. Thus Jarraway uses the relationship between Hughes and his surroundings to illustrate how Hughes voice cannot be purely black.
What Hughes faces in the poem is the dilemma of representing his black identity on a page meant for a white person. This dilemma is discussed in details by Tiomothy B. Powell in “Toni Morrision: The struggle to depict the black figure on the white page”. According to Powell, the biggest problem that African American writers face is expressing the black ethos in the master’s language where the very word black is associated with negation and evil (747). As a result, the black poet’s “page” ends up being “different” (p. 750) from that of his white counterparts. Since he is black, “it will not be white” but because of the white instructor’s influence, it cannot be completely black either. Thus according to Powell, the various influences result in Hughes’ voice being neither black nor white but “different.”
Daniel C. Turner in “Montage of a Simplicity Deferred: Langston Hughes’s Art of Sophistication and Racial Intersubjectivity in Montage of a Dream Deferred” argues that Hughes’ poems only seem to speak to the black but the simplicity of his words, in fact, lend themselves to “multiple interpretations” (p. 22). He argues that Hughes is careful to avoid his work being categorized as black and so includes white references in his work. In the “Theme for English B” this is in the form of the poet’s deriving equal pleasure from “Bessie, bop, Bach” (p. 29).
According to Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in “Between Individualism and Fragmentation: American Culture and the New Literary Studies of Race and Gender”, in the poem, Hughes feels he is representing himself in the words of others and yet insists that he has the right to “claim their tradition as his own” (p. 13). And by saying that he likes the same things as his white classmates, he refuses that accept that there is any radical difference between his experience and that of his white classmates. Thus, since he does not see any difference between himself and his other classmates he cannot possibly have a purely colored voice.
According to John Lowney in “Langston Hughes and the Nonsense’ of Bebop”, even though Hughes cannot identify with his white instructor’s worldview, the composition is too formal to be identified as black (p. 377). If we look beyond Hughes’ actual words and look at the way he has presented his poem, his formatting and his composition, it is obvious that this work belongs to a person who cannot be identified as purely “black” or “white”. Thus even in his presentation, Hughes voice is not black.
On analyzing the poem itself, we find a number of instances which lend support to the theory that Hughes voice is neutral. The poem starts with Hughes identifying himself as “twenty-two, colored” (p. 7). This establishes his youth and as well as his race. Next he goes on to give a brief history of himself, which further firmly establishes his race and his minority status in his school – “I am the only colored student in my class” (p. 10). However, he later insists that just because he is black, it does not make him NOT like “the same things other folks like who are other races” (p. 26). He insists that even though he is “colored”, the color of his page is influenced as much by his black background as by his white teacher’s influence. According to him, “That’s American” (p. 34). Thus, despite his racial background his voice cannot be truly “colored” because he is American.
However, in the first few lines of the poem, Hughes takes great effort to establish his colored identity. The entire stanza goes on and on about his being colored, his black background, his Harlem neighborhood and his social status as being the only colored student in the class. This stanza firmly established him as a young, black, minority student. Based on this stanza alone, it would seem that Hughes’ voice is purely black.
But reading on, we realize that this cannot be true as the next stanza completely shatters any such opinion one might have about his voice. He says that he is what he feels and sees and hears. And then insists that he hears not just Harlem but also New York, even though New York may not recognize him. Thus, what he is trying to say in these lines is that his identity is not just shaped by his Harlem influences but also by New York. In other words, he is what he hears and he hears both the black community of Harlem as well as the multi-cultural New York.
The next few lines are the most important lines of the poem in that they prove beyond doubt that Hughes voice is neutral.
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races. (pp. 21-26)
In these lines, Hughes points out all the similarities between him and his white classmates. Irrespective of race, there are some things which are universal to mankind. These things include a man’s needs to eat, sleep, drink, work, read, learn, understand life and be in love. These basic human characteristics are not altered by a man’s race. Here, Hughes is effectively asking his white instructor, as well as his readers who could be assumed to be predominantly black, how is he any different from the other races? He, thus, not only refuses to be labeled different by his white instructor but also tells his fellow black readers to realize that they are not all that different from the dominant white people. In doing this, he rids himself of an all black voice as he addresses both his white instructor as well as his colored background.
If any doubt remains in the mind of the reader about Hughes’ true voice, he goes on to further clarify himself in the next few lines. He is very clear that being colored his voice cannot be white. But he also refutes the idea that it is entirely black because it is influenced by his white instructor and white classmates as well as by the wider New York culture. He also insists that this influence is not just one way and just as he is influenced by his white teacher, the white teacher is also influenced by his presence in the class and indeed in the much wider society. Here he is telling his reader that not only is his voice not all black but even his white instructor is not likely to have an all-white voice, having been influenced by centuries of interactions with the black minority. He believes that these interactions between the black and white and all the other races which constitute America have resulted in the formation of a new culture and a new voice which cannot be labeled either “black” or “white” or by any other racial word. In his opinion, there is only one way to describe this intermingling of different races, which, in his words, is “That’s American” (p. 33).
There could be many ways to interpret Hughes’ voice in his different works. However, if we were to study just “Theme of English B”, there can be no doubt that in this poem his voice is neutral, or to be more specific, “American”. And what can be more clinching evidence of this American or neutral voice than Hughes’ own words which refuse to identify his work as colored, insisting that he and his work is like anyone else of any race and the influences are not limited to that of the black community of Harlem, but includes the wider American society.
Despite this clinching evidence about Hughes’ voice being neutral, one can always find critics who will insist that his voice in the poem is predominantly colored, if not entirely black. For these critics, the detailed description of his black neighborhood in Harlem and his repeated reference to his race is enough to prove that his voice is black. Robert O’Brien Hokanson insists in “Jazzing it up: the be-bop Modernism of Langston Hughes” that Hughes derives his inspiration from “the tradition of black music” (76) and in the “Theme for English B” the image of the writer is constituted by the black voices around him. This argument does not stand since Hughes clearly states that he likes “Bessie, bop, or Bach” (24) and that he likes “the same things other folks like who are other races” (26). We simply cannot ignore Hughes’ own words which insist that he is just like any other twenty-two year old with similar likes and dislikes as people of other races.
Even if we were to look beyond this poem and into the society around us or the social scenario of the time when this poem was written, we cannot ignore the multiple influences on each individual which would have shaped their voices. As Jarraway points out, the social and cultural extension of self cannot exist in a vacuum (833). We are all products of our social and cultural backgrounds. The African American community may have been given an inferior status than the white community and their homes and lives may have been segregated, but it did not stop them from casting an influence on white majority. Nor did it stop them from being influenced by the white people.
There is another reason why there is bound to be some influence of the two cultures on each other. For centuries, the black worked as slaves in white homes. Even though the slaves tried to find their own voice in these suppressed times, there was bound to be some interaction between the slaves and their masters, influencing each other voices. Indeed, most of the African American literature is written in a language which could be considered the “Master’s” language.
Coming back to the poem, Hughes tells the instructor that “it will be/ a part of you, instructor./ You are white—/ yet a part of me, as I am a part of you” (30-33). Clearly, Hughes too feels this influence and insists that this influence is not just one sided but the white teacher is also influenced by his presence in the class and indeed in the society, even though he may be in the minority. If the white instructor, being from the dominant culture, and being older and “somewhat more free” (41), cannot avoid being influenced by the black culture and learning from it, even though he does not want to be, it is highly unlikely for a person from the minority to retain his voice as racially pure.
However, having said that, I will have to accept, in Hughes words, “if it’s that simple”. Although Hughes clearly says that he is influenced by the society around him and so his voice cannot remain racially pure, one is forced to wonder what a racially pure black voice would sound like. Does anyone of us really know what our racially pure voice is? There are simply too many influences which shape us and our personalities that by the time a person is old enough to develop a voice, it has already lost its purity. Even what we may consider to be a pure black voice has been influenced by years of interactions with the white culture. The black do not remain in a vacuum and hence cannot claim a voice which is completely unaffected by other influences.
Yet, even if we consider the acceptable definition of a “black” voice, Hughes’ voice in “Theme of English B” cannot be considered black. Hughes himself refers to his voice as “American”. And if we need any further proof, there is an interesting experiment conducted by Rose C. Reissman, which she discusses in details in “Leaving Out to Pull in: Using Reader Response to Teach Multicultural literature”. According to her, once she had removed all the cultural identifiers from the poem, her seventh grade students were unable to identify the racial and cultural identity of the poet (23). This should be the final clinching evidence to support my theory that Hughes voice in the poem “
Theme for English B” is not black but neutral.
Works Cited
- Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. “Between Individualism and Fragmentation: American Culture and the New Literary Studies of Race and Gender.” American Quarterly. 42.1 (1990): 7-34. Literature Online Reference Edition. Odum Library, Valdosta, GA.
- Hokanson, Robert O’Brien. “Jazzing it up: the be-bop Modernism of Langston Hughes.” Mosaic. 31.4 (1998): 61-82. Literature Online Reference Edition. Odum Library, Valdosta, GA.
- Hughes, Langston. “Theme for English B”.
- Jarraway, David R. “Montage of an Otherness Deferred: Dreaming subjectivity in Langston Hughes.” American Literature 68.4 (Dec. 1996): 819-847. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Odum Library, Valdosta, GA.
- Lowney, John. “Langston Hughes and the Nonsense’ of Bebop.” American Literature 72.2 (2000): 357-385. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Odum Library, Valdosta, GA.
- Powell, Timothy B. “Toni Morrision: The struggle to depict the black figure on the white page.” Black American Literature Forum 24.4 (1990): 747-760. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Odum Library, Valdosta, GA. 2009.
- Reissman, Rose C.. “Leaving out to pull in: Using reader response to teach multicultural literature.” English Journal 83.2 (1994): 20–23. Research Library. ProQuest. Odum Library, Valdosta, GA.
- Turner, Daniel C. “Montage of a Simplicity Deferred: Langston Hughes’s Art of Sophistication and Racial Intersubjectivity in Montage of a Dream Deferred.” Langston Hughes Review. 17 ( 2002): 22-34. Literature Online Reference Edition. Odum Library, Valdosta, GA.