Summary

The narrator is a 22 year old, colored, young man, who was born in Winston-Salem. He had been
to school at the place where he was born, and followed that by going to a school in Durham,
before he started going to his current college in Harlem.

The narrator is a resident of Harlem. He stays at Harlem branch of YMCA. This was located at the
heart of the Harlem Renaissance. The 'Harlem Y' was declared to be a 'National Historic
Landmark' in 1976, and 'New York City Landmark in 1998. He is assigned the task by his
instructor to write a page. Once in his room, and when he starts his assignment, he finds it difficult
to write. The instructor has asked him to write what he finds true.

The narrator says it is difficult to know what is the truth and what isn't at the young age of twenty
two. He hazards a guess that whatever he can see, hear, and feel, must be the truth. The narrator
has his share of experiences in all the three aspects from Harlem and New York.

The narrator tries to identify himself as someone who loves to sleep, eat, drink, be in love, work,
read, learn, and understands life. He wishes to get a pipe as a gift for Christmas. He has an interest
in Bessie, Bop, and Bach. He says that being colored doesn't make him not like the things that
people of other races like.

The writer wonders, "So will my page be colored that I write?". He says that his writing will have
a few different shades as well. It will have some of his white instructor in his writing, that has now
become a part of his writing. This, at times, is not what both of them want, but it remains a fact.
He says 'That's American'.

The poem concludes with the writer saying "This is my page for English B", which is a result of
the narrator learning something from the instructor, as has the instructor learned a few things from
him, despite the instructor being 'older', 'white', and 'somewhat more free'.

Analysis

The poem is a view of the racist society prevalent at the beginning of 20th century in America, as
seen by a young man, the narrator. The writer, as a part of his assigned task, tries to keep his
writing honest. He, to begin with, finds it difficult to understand what the truth is. He wonders
whether the truth is what he feels or likes? He does not resent what people of other races like just
because he is colored. He thinks about how impartial he can be when penning down the truth. He
admits that there is bound to be some bias in his writing, yet, majorly, his writing is like the
American society, which he says is incomplete without all elements that form it. These elements
that make up the society, may, at times, not want to be a part of the mixture. But he says, the truth
is that they are a part of it and get to learn things from one another.

Line 1
The instructor said,

This line sets us up and gives us the context of the poem. There's an instructor, so we can guess
that we're in a classroom. Notice how this line is set apart from the poem? Since the instructor gets
this first, separate line—at the very top of the whole poem—we get the sense that he's an authority
figure, and we're going to listen up to what he's saying.
Lines 2-3
Go home and write
a page tonight.

These lines are in italics, so after the set-up of line 1, we know that this is probably the instructor
speaking (italics in writing tend to indicate someone's speech or thoughts). He's giving out his
assignment. His students are supposed to write one page. (Terminology note: Back in the day, such
writing assignments were called "themes." So, "Theme for English B" refers to this assignment,
not the English "theme," the central message of a literary work, that we typically think of today.
For more on this, check out "What's Up With the Title?".)
So, write about what?
Sounds simple enough to us, but it's also pretty vague. And it makes us think about how different
home could be for each of this instructor's students. Where do they live? Who do they live with?
What is their commute to class like?
Lines 4-5
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.

Here, we get deeper into the assignment. This isn't just any page, but a page that's supposed to
come out of "you," or, the student. This means that whatever the page is, it's supposed to reflect
something deep about who the writer is. The topic seems to be wide open, though. Whether it's
their sentiments about scrambled eggs or the state of modern society, if it comes from the inside,
it's fair game for this assignment.
Line 5, then, goes a little further to say that, if the page comes out of the person writing it, it will
be "true." The professor is inviting the students to see the connection between their writing, their
selves, and some ultimate truth. Hmm. We wonder where that will take our speaker.

Line 6
I wonder if it's that simple?

Here, our speaker enters the poem for the first time, and he does so debating the assignment. Have
you ever gotten an assignment from a teacher or a professor that seems to oversimplify something
—maybe, like the complicated concept of "truth"? If so, you were up against the same dilemma
our speaker is up against now. That's a biggie!
The speaker wonders if it can be so simple that whatever you write, if it comes from inside, is true.
Truth can be something as easy as "2 plus 2 equals 4," but more often it's something complex,
such as, "I love my father, but I hate that he is mean when he drinks alcohol," or "I don't know
whether or not I believe in God." Truth is generally hard to pin down, and far from simple, and the
speaker seems to recognize that.
Line 7
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.

Now we get into the biological meat of the story. These are the facts about our speaker—perhaps,
even, the simple truths. Yet these facts, when we look closely, tell us a lot about our speaker and
his (we're assuming that it's a he) life.
We'll break it down: he's 22 years old. Today, that's the age when a lot of people graduate from
college. It's often referred to as the "quarter-life crisis." At 22, our speaker is no longer a carefree
youth, and he's a few years away from being a teenager. Maybe his friends are getting married,
having kids, getting jobs and promotions. It seems like he's wondering what exactly his life is
supposed to be, and what the years after 22 are going to look like. We know, at least, that our
speaker is still in school, so we're guessing his education is going to play an important role in
determining his future and his thoughts.
Then, our speaker says he's colored, or black. Being black back when this poem was published, in
1951, meant dealing with a lot of racism. In this era, before the Civil Rights Movement and Martin
Luther King Jr., prejudice was rampant.
Last, we hear that the speaker was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, home to Wake Forest
University (go Demon Deacons!). So he's from the South—a stalwart hub of prejudice. So even
though the rest of this poem talks a lot about New York, we can think of the speaker's knowledge
of the South, and the discrimination he may have faced there.
Important note: This line is a big clue that our speaker is not Hughes, because Hughes was born in
Missouri. So Hughes is giving us the words of another person—whether it's a real person that
Hughes knew, or one that he made up, we can only guess. The main thing to remember here is
that, contrary to what a lot of people say about this poem, it is definitely not part of Hughes'
autobiography. This is why it's always, always important to make the distinction between the
speaker of the poem and the poet who actually wrote it.
Lines 8-9
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.

Here, we're getting a brief overview of the speaker's educational background.

It's easy to just assume that the college mentioned is Columbia University, where Hughes studied.
But, remember, this poem isn't in Hughes' voice. It's more likely that the school mentioned is the
City College of New York, which is in fact on a hill in Harlem.
These lines tell us something else important about our speaker—he takes his education seriously,
since he's stayed with it through multiple institutions.
Line 10
I am the only colored student in my class.

The speaker is the only black person in his class—we're assuming that means his English B class,
not his entire class at the college, but it could be either way.
It also means that he's willing to pursue an education even though it places him in the minority,
which can be uncomfortable, especially back in 1951, when this poem was published.
This line brings race into the forefront of the poem, and gets us about thinking about race and
identity, and how they relate to this idea of "truth."
Lines 11-15
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

These lines show us the speaker's journey from his class back to his living quarters. Check out a
map of Harlem to follow his journey.
The steps of his journey let us know for sure that he's talking about the City College of New York
(just west of St. Nicholas and the park), and give us a little bit of the city flavor. His walk sounds
like it's a good mix of park and street, and, like any walk of a few blocks, it probably gives him
time to clear his head and think about his class, his life, and his world.
The "Y" that the speaker talks about is the Harlem YMCA. If you haven't been to a YMCA, think
of it as kind of a community center. The Harlem Y, which is still around, serves as a hostel.
Hostels are cheap places for people, particularly young people, to stay.
So that paints the image in our mind that our speaker probably doesn't have a ton of money. He
sleeps and works in one room, and probably shares a bathroom with a whole bunch of people.
Note that when we jump from line 14 to 15, we get a little bit of enjambment, a literary device in
which there's a line split right smack in the middle of a thought. In this case, the line split helps
break up the journey into small steps.
These lines take us with our narrator as he works his way back home from English B. While he's
walking, he's thinking, and we're thinking with him. It's impressive that the first thing this 22-year-
old does when he gets back to his room is sit down and write. How many young people do you
know who would work on their homework right away, rather than put it off? It makes us wonder
what the sources of our speaker's motivation could be. He clearly wants to get to work!
The details of this journey really help establish a setting (for more on that, check out the… Setting
section), and literally, let us readers walk in the speaker's shoes.
Also notice the colon at the end of this line. Possibly, that means that the rest of the poem is the
assignment—the page that's supposed to be true—and this part leading up to that was just the set
up.

Line 16
It's not easy to know what is true for you or me

What a statement we've got here: it's not, our speaker says, easy to know what's true. Do you agree
with this statement? It fits right in with the doubtful tone of the rest of the poem, bringing us back
to the original assignment, and the speaker's skepticism about its simplicity.
Pay attention to the audience, here. The speaker uses the second person at the end of this line, with
the word "you." Immediately, this might make us think of ourselves, the readers, but it's important
to remember the context of this poem. The "you" here most likely refers to the speaker's instructor,
who will be reading this page for sure, or perhaps even the speaker's classmates, who might listen
in if he reads the assignment aloud.
Line 17
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what

Here, we've got more enjambment. There's a split thought between line 16 and line 17, and
another split between line 17 and line 18, so it's important to pay attention to both line breaks and
punctuation.
Let's start with the thought from line 16. Added to the statement that it's difficult to know what's
true, now we've got to think of the influence of age on truth.
Perhaps, this hints, it's harder to know what's true when you're in your twenties. You have a whole
lot of your future to live out, but you've lost the certainty that sometimes comes with youth and
innocence. You're kind of just figuring out who you are. (Oddly, that is a pretty mature thought to
have for someone how is that young—don't you think?.)
There's some repetition here—we already know that 22 is the speaker's own age, he told us so in
line 7. But the repetition makes this poem feel as if it really were just a page written straight from
the speaker's brain, with no rearrangement or artifice.
The form of the poem suggests that same thing. We can say that it's grouped into four main
"sections," but it's not something that's evenly hammered out into well-defined stanzas. For more
on the form of the poem, check out "Form and Meter."
The second part of the line keeps up the conversational feel. "But I guess" isn't a phrase you'd find
in most poems. In this poem, which is supposed to show a page coming from a student's heart, it
fits right in. Still, we're left guessing exactly what the speaker is trying to say he is until we get to
the next line.
Line 18
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:

Now we hear what the speaker guesses he is. He is what he senses. He names three senses:
feeling, seeing, and hearing. Feeling is a tricky one, because that can be taken literally, to mean
touch, and figuratively, to mean emotion. Seeing and hearing are more straightforward.
He adds on to this list of three senses by saying that he feels Harlem. Note the structure of this
line, with the repetition of the word "hear." This makes the line seem much more rhythmic and
conversational, and turns the "I hear you" into an affirmation, not just an observation.
Connecting this line with the rest of the poem, it seems the speaker is saying that what comes out
of him, and according to the instructor, what is him, is what he sees, feels, and hears. Harlem,
which fills up most of his senses at the moment, is thus a big part of who he is, and a big part of
this page he's writing. So, in a way, he's saying that Harlem is "true."
Note that this line ends in a colon. We've seen that construction earlier in the page. Colons are
generally followed by a list, or a description.
Line 19
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.

This line comes right after a colon. Though a colon is generally used in front of a list or a
description, here, it seems to be suggesting that this line is dialogue.
So here, we hear the speaker talking to Harlem. This line begs to be read aloud—its strength is in
its rhythm. Though the "you" in this line is referring to Harlem, it gets swept up in the back and
forth cadence of the line, and brings us readers in. "We" and "you" seems to include us, the
audience, just as much as it refers to Harlem.
Note that "we two" is separated by dashes. This is an interesting phrase. It brings the speaker and
Harlem together with the "we," but maintains the separation with the word "two." Maybe the
speaker and Harlem can join together, but they're still separate.
Line 20
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?

Here, the speaker's thoughts are jumping around a little, but still related. So in addition to Harlem,
he hears New York as a whole—the city, or perhaps, even the whole state! This is snuck into the
line inside parentheses, which means that maybe, the speaker thought it was a little off topic. In
our opinion, though, it fits in just fine.
Harlem, and our speaker, are part of this big, bustling city. At the same, time, though (and just like
in the phrasing "we two"), New York is mentioned separately. Though Harlem is in New York, it's
still treated as a place that's not the same as New York. Separation remains.
After this little parenthetical, we've got the speaker questioning who he is. He seems to be going
back over line 19, and examining this tiny little pronoun "me."
He doesn't feel quite comfortable talking about his relationship with Harlem and New York
without knowing who he, himself, is.
The structure of this line keeps up the conversational feel. The poem, with all its dashes,
parentheses, and question marks, really does seem like it was written to fit the assignment in lines
2-5.

Line 28
Being me, it will not be white.

This line seems pretty simple at first, but when you think about it, it's got a few layers to it.
The first would be to think that the speaker is just using the idiom, "being me." Because he is who
he is, the page that he writes won't be just white.
This operates on a few levels. Obviously, if he completes the assignment, the page won't be white
—it will be filled with writing. Being him, he would of course complete the assignment.
Or, he could be speaking about white in terms of the white race. Because he is himself, a black
man, the page that he writes won't seem like it's written by a white man.
There's also a subtle play here with the structure of this line. Read smoothly, it comes along in the
cadence of speaking. But if you pay attention to the grammar, it almost seems as if the speaker is
saying that the page is him ("Being me"). That links us back to the assignment given earlier in this
poem—that if the page comes out of the speaker, it will be true. It will also, then, come from our
speaker who is black, be black, not white.
Lines 29-30
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.

Here we get another example of enjambment, of which the poem is chock-full. (For more on this,
check out "Form and Meter.") As a refresher, enjambment is a literary device in which lines are
split mid-thought.
In line 29, we get the follow up to the reasoning that the page won't be white. We get a teaser that
the page will be something which, thanks to the enjambment, we have to skip down to line 30 to
find out about.
The page will be a part of the instructor, our speaker says, after dropping down to the next line.
The enjambment almost makes it seem as if the speaker is arguing with himself—the page won't
be white, but then again, a part of it will be. It's only once we move a line farther down that we
know the speaker's taking us somewhere different with the line.
He's taking us to the idea that the page that he writes will be a part of his instructor. This could
mean a few different things. First of all, it could be simply referring to the fact that this page is
only being written because of an assignment given by the instructor. The other thing is that
perhaps the speaker is saying, when you read something, it becomes a part of you. The instructor,
who's bound to read the page, will thus have it be made part of him. So, everything that we read,
in turn, could become a part of us. (Has "Theme for English B" become a part of you?)
Lines 31-32
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.

So, we already knew that the speaker was the only black person in his class, but now we hear that
the instructor is white.
Then, the speaker goes on to say that he and his instructor are a part of each other.
The word "yet" is clutch here. Coming before the claim that the instructor and speaker are part of
each other, it sets up the sentiment that it's a new or striking thought that, despite being different
colors, these two people can be in each other's lives in a meaningful way. This might not seem like
a big statement, but remember the setting of this poem, which was published in 1951. Then,
racism and segregation still created a lot of tension and hatred between the two races.
This statement by the speaker, then, strives to bring the two races together. It says: Hey—we may
be different, as different as black and white paper. But we're still a part of each other. Maybe, it's
saying, we can work together, as can all black and white people.
Line 33
That's American.

Now, the speaker moves from connecting the two races, through the relationship of himself, black,
and his instructor, white, to making a statement about America in general.
Despite the hesitance seen in the speaker's assertion that he and his instructor are part of each
other, in lines 31-32, he's now moving to a more confident stance. We have our disagreements, this
line is saying, but it's American to realize that differences are differences, yet we all still influence
each other. This line, and this poem, are thus becoming intertwined in the view of America as the
Melting Pot, where cultures and people from all over the world come together, mixing together to
create something uniquely American.
Lines 34-36
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!

The speaker is admittedly hesitant about identifying his instructor and himself as part of each
other. While the structure of these lines, with words like "sometimes" and "perhaps" and "often" is
still tentative, the lines are wrapped up with an affirmative statement, made certain by an
exclamation point.
We see that the hesitation about whether or not the speaker and his instructor are part of each other
is because, well, they don't really want to be a part of each other. They might even be happier
never influencing each other at all. But as line 36 exclaims, they are part of each other, no matter
what.
Maybe they don't want to be part of each other because they are different races, maybe it's because
it's the student finds instructors who give homework annoying.
The use of pronouns in these lines, without bringing the situation back to the specific
instructor/student relationship, has a certain effect. Whenever the pronoun "you," is used, it makes
us readers reflect upon ourselves. In some way, the speaker declares that he's a part of us, too.
Thinking about these lines as about white and black people is probably the most relevant to the
rest of the poem, and the racist time in which it was written.
White people and black people, in 1951, when this poem was published, were hostile to each
other. It was past the turbulence of the Harlem Renaissance, not yet the civil rights movement of
the sixties, and far from the integrated world that we have today.
Either way, though, the white and the black, the student and his instructor, the speaker and his
readers, are a part of each other.
Note the word "true." Remember the assignment from lines 2-5 saying that if this page came from
the writer, it would be true. Here, the speaker is commenting on the truth that he feels has come
out of this assignment. The phrase is emphasized, and made cheerful, by the exclamation point at
the end. We can almost imagine the speaker reading this poem aloud in class, his voice rising with
this line.
We may not want to be a part of each other, he's saying, but we're stuck, for better or for worse.
And to make it more important, that is more than a student's simple observation—it's true. Despite
the exclamation point, which makes us think this is an uplifting statement, we can still detect a
little bitterness about the nature of this truth, and the society it exists in. After all, if the speaker
can recognize this truth, why can't everybody else?
Lines 37-38
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—

These lines continue to tie together the student and his instructor, the speaker and his audience,
and the white and the black. They still have that hesitant, conversational tone, the speaker saying
"I guess" in line 38.
Let's break it down. In line 37, the speaker says that he's learning from his instructor. Well, duh,
he's a student. But this perhaps carries more than the obvious meaning. His instructor is different
from him. He's white. In the 1950s, a black student's feelings towards a white instructor would be
quite complicated, especially when the black student is the only one of his race in his class.
Yet, still, he's learning from the instructor. And, perhaps more surprising, he says that the
instructor is learning from him.
If you talk to teachers, one thing you will hear most of them say is that they learn from their
students. In fact, some people say that they learn from most people they meet and spend time with.
Each new person has a different way of looking at life, and different ideas and insights.
But the learning in this situation could be even more powerful because of the influence of race.
This white instructor could have a lot to learn from his one black student, or he could close his
mind and maintain any prejudices he may have. It seems, however, that both parties in this
situation are open-minded enough to learn.
Then you've also got to think about these lines in the general sense. The word "learn" kicks us
back immediately to the specific—the instructor—but the general pronouns still leave us able to
think about the wider meanings of this line. White people and black people learn from each other,
as do writers and their audiences.
Lines 39-40
although you're older—and white—
and somewhat more free.

If this poem were a joke, these lines would be the final set up and the punch line. They take all of
the debate of the poem and pack it together into two hard-hitting, emotional lines.
First, we have the speaker narrowing down the pronoun "you." Here, he's definitely talking
specifically about his instructor, who is older, and white, unlike our young black speaker.
Still, even though the speaker is being specific, if the person reading this poem did happen to be
older and white, he would probably identify with the instructor.
So we've got the fairly harmless set up of line 39, which seems to be merely stating some obvious
facts.
Then we jump down to line 40, and it's like a punch in the gut—we need to catch our breaths.
From older and white, we get "more free." For a country that considers itself a model of freedom
for the world, this observation hits hard.
However, as the speaker would say, it's true. As a white person in the '40s and '50s, the instructor
certainly would have had far more opportunities than his black student, whether it was more
freedom of choice about where to sit on the bus, where to apply for jobs, or where to buy a house.
Everything in life was harder and more limited for a black person, and the government backed up
individuals' prejudices. Sure, there's plenty of injustice and prejudice today, but at least now, it's
illegal.
Then there's the qualifier: "somewhat." Is the speaker hedging his bets here? Is he suggesting that
having "somewhat" less freedom is not as bad as having a whole lot less? A more likely reading is
that this a classic case of understatement. The speaker really intends to drive this point home to the
white instructor, but he undercuts it to heighten the effect and invite the instructor to consider just
how much freedom he has, compare to his black student.
Line 41
This is my page for English B.
This line wraps up the entire poem, and ties it together.
Sure, line 40 is probably the most hard hitting, evocative line in the poem, but this line also has an
important effect. It's set aside, all by itself, and reminds us of the poem's title and the mundane
thought of English B, a standard, run-of-the-mill, college class.
The stanza before this line, as conversationally as it may be written, is full of intense emotions and
statements about race, America, and truth.
So what, then, is the effect of bringing the poem to an end with a simple, unemotional statement?
Well, for one, it reminds us that the speaker is a person. A kid, even, who likes the things other
kids like, as we learn in lines 21 to 24. It also reminds us of the irony of this assignment—that
something as magnificent as truth can come from a simple page of writing, from the heart as it
may be. Wrapped up in this irony, though, is the truth that has, indeed, arisen from the assignment
in this poem, even if it's a meta-truth—a truth about truth. The truth, this page has said, depends
on who you are, who you're learning from, and who is a part of you. The truth is also that white
and black people, and perhaps all people, play a big role in forming each other's identity. The
truth, also, in the time that this poem is written, is that white people were freer than black people.
How do you feel about these truths? Do they discomfort you? Enrage you? Encourage you? Make
you want to go recite this poem on a busy street corner in Harlem, in your best booming voice?
For the speaker, they may do any of these things. But, after all, he's just a student, writing his
humble page for English B. And while finding the truth may not be so simple as writing a page
from the heart, this page, indeed, points in the right direction.