Langston Hughes
...e is going to turn it in as his assignment. The speaker provides plenty of information about himself in the first half of the poem-where he lives, some of the things he likes, and so on. The second half of the poem is more concerned with the similarities and differences between the speaker and the instructor. One of the most interesting things about the way the speaker deals with the issues he is thinking about is the lack of bitterness or animosity towards these differences. This poem shows that the speaker is not resentful of race relations in America, and believes that the undeniable connection between blacks and whites that he speaks of in the last stanza is truly what it means to be American. It is not beyond reason to interpret certain lines as expressions of negative feelings, when considered simply on a surface level. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker asserts that he is the only colored student in his class. Later, as he is explaining how he and his instructor are inexorably connected, he mentions that oftentimes, he does not appreciate this connection. In one of the last lines of the poem, the speaker calls the instructor "older and white and somewhat more free.” These lines could be construed as the speaker's expression of his anger or resentment towards to instructor, white people in general, and/or the upper hand that they seem to hold in American culture, at least back when this poem was written. However, the context and general tone of the poem suggest otherwise, as does the lack of information we are given about the instructor himself. In fact, the only thing we know for sure is that he is white. Something we do not know is how he treats the speaker in class, for instance, and whether he tends to grade him fairly or unfairly. These things would probably tell us whether or not the speaker means the previous lines in a harsh manner, but as it is, it is possible to form some idea of this from their context. For example, when he says, "Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me./ Nor do I often want to be a part of you," it is in the context of stating that he and his instructor (and perhaps black Americans and white Americans) are connected in ways that they cannot help, and that even though they may not like it sometimes, it doesn't change that fact. The tone of such statements is not one of negativity, but a neutral acceptance. Something that tends to be prevalent in rants about inequality is the listing of things that one does not have. It is an interesting thing then that the speaker in this poem never dwells on the things he doesn't have; He does quite the opposite and lists the things he does have and love. "I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love/ I like to work, read...