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Ale, I Too, Sing America

The document discusses Langston Hughes' poem "I, Too" and how it relates to different aspects of being African American in the United States. It explores how the poem presents America as not fully accepting African Americans as equals at the time it was written. It examines the domestic imagery in the poem and how the speaker relates to white Americans, showing a range of emotions from exclusion to hope. It also considers how the historical setting during slavery relates to Hughes' contemporary early 20th century America, noting similarities in racism and oppression faced by African Americans despite the end of slavery.

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58 views1 page

Ale, I Too, Sing America

The document discusses Langston Hughes' poem "I, Too" and how it relates to different aspects of being African American in the United States. It explores how the poem presents America as not fully accepting African Americans as equals at the time it was written. It examines the domestic imagery in the poem and how the speaker relates to white Americans, showing a range of emotions from exclusion to hope. It also considers how the historical setting during slavery relates to Hughes' contemporary early 20th century America, noting similarities in racism and oppression faced by African Americans despite the end of slavery.

Uploaded by

eter꯭nity
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How does this poem make you think about what it means to be an American?

How is
"America" presented in this poem, and how does it make you feel about America?

= When the poem was written, many African American were still forced to work for white
men, in the poem America is presented as it still does not want the African Americans to be
as equal, like in stanza two it says; “I am the darker brother…And grow strong”.

What effect does the intensely domestic imagery of the poem – the house, the kitchen, the
eating, the table – have on the themes of this piece as a whole? What kind of character is
the speaker? How do you feel about him as a spokesperson for American citizenry?

=Like I said before African American were still forced to work as maids, buttler, cooks, for
white men. The speaker of the poem is in first person, because in the poem it used “I” so, by
definition it is the person writing. Like in the first stanza says; “I, too sing America”. Second
stanza; “I am the darker brother”.

There are many different ways in which the speaker of this poem relates to "the other" (i.e.,
the white Americans) here. It's more than just "these people don't like these other people" –
can you identify the whole range of emotions? How do these emotions make the piece
more complicated?

=In the second stanza, it says; “They send me to eat in the kitchen”, maybe it refers to the
white family that was working with, because, maybe the family doesn’t want a “bad
reputation” and they want to hide the African American. And in the third stanza says;
“Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table when company comes”. Here is confusing because in the
second stanza it says that they send them to the kitchen to eat and in the third stanza is
thinking that maybe one day that white family would change their thoughts.

What relationship does the historical setting of this poem have to Hughes's contemporary
setting? That is, how does the poem manage to work on two levels – America in the time of
slavery and America in the first half of the 20th century? How are those two time periods
similar? How are they different?

=Langston Hughes wanted to explore quality, or lack thereof, in everyday American life. He
was thinking about how they were treated as citizens as well as a human being. Also
Langston saw America grow and evolve when it came to equal rights for minorities. Even
though slavery had been abolished years before he was born, Hughes still encountered
blatant racism and opression as a black man.

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