Langston Hughes: Poems Lesson Plan

Who is the family in "I, Too"? What do they represent? How do the events of the poem function as metaphors?

The speaker talks about a nuclear family in which he is a brother, but he is different, an outcast, since he is the "darker brother." In this poem, the family represents America. The speaker, a black man, belongs to the family since is an American and a human being, but he is not fully accepted. The family sends him away to eat in the kitchen when company comes over, which is a metaphor for the way black people were discriminated against and American life was segregated in many ways. As he is away in the kitchen, the man eats and grows strong. He knows that someday...