# Wise Men explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by Langston Hughes.

## What happens

The speaker reflects on the nature of wisdom, equating it with a kind of emotional or spiritual deadness, and contrasts this with the rigidity of rules and teaching.

## Themes in this chapter

### Death and Mortality

The poem equates wisdom with a dead-eyed, lifeless state, suggesting a form of living death.

### Resilience and Joy

The speaker rejects the dead-eyed wisdom of the wise men, implicitly valuing a more vibrant, perhaps joyful, way of being.

## Character check-ins

### Unknown

The speaker who contemplates becoming dead-eyed like a fish to attain wisdom.

### Wise Men

Figures observed by the speaker, characterized as having dead eyes.

## Key lines

> Let me become dead eyed Like a fish⁠— I’m sure then I’d be wise For all the wise men I’ve seen Have had dead eyes.

If I become emotionally numb and unseeing, I will be considered wise, because that is what I have observed in those called wise.

_The speaker equates conventional wisdom with a loss of vitality and perception._

> Let me learn to fit all things Into law and rule: I’d be the proper person then To teach a school.

If I can reduce everything to rigid rules and systems, I will be qualified to be a teacher.

_The speaker critiques the reduction of knowledge to mere rule-following, as seen in formal education._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_15_se/chapters/wise-men
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_15_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_15_se/chapters