Langston Hughes

“Thank You Ma'am” is a short story written by Langston Hughes. This story was published in 1958. Hughes was born in 1902 and started writing at an early age. His first article was published when he was in high school. His artwork present in written form represents his viewpoint of seeing things. His early life tragedy, separation of his parents forced him to live with his grandmother. He did not have a reputable start in his careers, as he had to do some odd jobs including assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy. He represented his real life experiences in his writing. “Thank You Ma'am" is a sequential, short story in this aspect about a young written in narrative form. This story contains several dialects such is not, gonna, I were, fix us, could of, representing a common conversation between people to make reader feel comfortable. The theme of this story is about children who live in poor neighborhoods, have very little to go home, are neglected and needs someone who cares; similar to the way Hughes was brought up.

The setting of the short story takes places during the early 1900s. There is a large woman named Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones and a young boy named Roger. It is about eleven o'clock at night, in the road when the woman walked alone and in the woman house, the house large. The omniscient, all knowing point of view, who the writer know all of the thinking of the character. This story about how the poor son meets with the kind Ma'am, so the Ma'am gets concerned with the son condition (Laurie, 2-4). She wants to help him. So the theme is kindness or society and this possible theme for this story: Kindness is a more effective tool for rehabilitating criminal behavior than punishment, trust can build relationships in the most unexpected places, offering kindness to a bad person can have transforming results, people respond more positively to trust and kindness than to punishment.

The story begins with a boy, named Roger, who tries to snatch a woman's purse and finds himself in a situation that he has never expected to wash his face, eating dinner, and receiving money to buy what he wanted instead of stealing money (Laurie, 2-4). It allows the reader to use their creativity in regard to each occurring event yet focused on the need to teach the boy a lesson about integrity through the gift of wisdom mingled with kindness (www.amlit.com). This portrays the artistic pole of the author's text, and that is accomplished through realization. Hughes did this in her short story when Mrs. Jones stated that she had experiences when she was young too (Berry, 150).

The woman decides to take Roger back to her apartment instead of calling the police. Roger explains that he is in need of money to buy a pair of shoes. Roger is portrayed as a young boy, round fourteen or fifteen, that is roaming the streets late at night up to ...