18 pages • 36 minutes read
Tired
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Themes
Passivity and Opportunity
The theme of passivity occurs in the first half of “Tired,” with the speaker bemoaning their idle condition: “I am so tired of waiting” (Line 1). The adjective (“tired”) and the noun (“waiting”) are not exciting, propulsive words, as they indicate lethargy, loitering, and a general lack of purposeful movement. This passivity upsets the speaker, and he does not wait to wait any longer. In the context of the theme, "tired" takes on an ironic meaning, as the speaker uses a sleepy word to signal that he’s ready to take action.
The theme of passivity carries over onto the audience. The speaker implicates the reader in the lack of activity by asking, “Aren’t you” (Line 2) tired of waiting, too? The speaker suspects that the reader is on his side, and they, too, are fed up with passively hoping for “the world to become good / And beautiful and kind” (Lines 3-4). As the speaker aligns himself with the reader, they’re both in the same place, so neither must feel guilty about waiting around and not taking a more aggressive approach. The speaker reaches out to the audience and gives them the opportunity to cast aside their passive stance and, with the speaker, do something productive.
Action and Activism
After the speaker decides to put aside his passive, helpless stance, the theme of action takes over. The speaker isn’t acting alone; he uses the plural pronoun “us” in “Let us take a knife” (Line 5). The speaker is idle no more. He has a plan and is about to carry it out with the hypothetical audience. It’s as if the speaker has turned the reader into an activist. Together, the speaker and the reader will try and do something specific to bring about social change and make the world “good / And beautiful and kind” (Lines 3-4). As the term “activist” implies, this path requires active participation.
Using the knife, the speaker and the reader will “cut the world in two— / And see what worms are eating / At the rind” (Lines 6-8). This image corresponds to action and activism. Cutting the world into pieces is action, and singling out the worms is an example of activism because it seeks to identify and expel the malicious elements of society. Martin Luther King Jr. was a famous 20th-century activist championed by Langston Hughes. As an activist, one of King’s main goals was to espouse actions that would rid America of racism, so, for King, racism was a worm.
Racism was a worm for Hughes as well, but in “Tired,” there’s not enough evidence to reduce the worms to only representing racism. The historical context of the poem and the language suggests that Hughes could be referring to many things—including but not limited to racism. If Hughes wanted to focus almost exclusively on racism, there’d be more race-centric language, as there is in “Children's Rhymes" (1951) or “The Ballad of the Landlord” (1940). In “Tired,” the action and activism relate to multiple issues, as the world isn’t beautiful, good, or kind for several reasons.
The theme of action also relates to the worms. The whole time, the “worms are eating / At the rind” (Lines 7-8). Even before the speaker and the reader take up the knife, the worms actively eat away at the skin. In a sense, the speaker is responding to the action of the worms. If the worms are actively harming the fabric of society, then it’s up to the speaker and the reader to counter this behavior with actions that benefit the world.
The Bad State of the World and How to Make It Better
The speaker's refusal to attribute the lack of beauty, kindness, and goodness in the world to a single issue reinforces the claim that the world was not in great shape when "Tired" was published. The theme of the world gone awry is apparent in the poem’s general, sweeping language. The speaker isn’t necessarily talking about a specific part of the world or a particular injustice. There are so many problems and injustices happening, and, to address all of them, the speaker adopts nonspecific language.
Although the theme of the poem mostly centers on how bad the world has become, all is not lost. The image in Lines 5-8 indicates goodness in the world. The speaker wants to “cut the world in two” (Line 6). The “two” suggests good and evil. There are positive actors and pernicious forces, and to help the positive actors gain control and make the world “good / And beautiful and kind” (Lines 3-4), the positive actors, which presumably includes the speaker and the audience, need to dissect the world and jettison the corrupt parts, or the worms.
In the poem, the world is a battle of good versus evil. Tired of waiting around for the evil elements to subside, the speaker and the reader, representing the good elements, plan to expose the worms and deal with them. In other words, the speaker wants to change the condition of the world by confronting its evil influences.
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By Langston Hughes
