Thank You, M'am

Hughes is most famous as a poet, and even his prose employs techniques more commonly associated with poetry, such as alliteration, or the repetition of initial consonant sounds in successive words or phrases. Perhaps the best example in “Thank You, M’am” comes in Hughes’s description of Roger as “willow-wild” (Paragraph 16). The phrase conjures an image of a slender and perhaps flighty or fearful boy, one who resembles the slim and drooping branches of a weeping willow. The repetition of the letter W reinforces this characterization, while the breathiness of the sound conveys a sense of airiness and insubstantiality.

“Thank You, M’am” features just two characters, and they are opposites in nearly every respect; where Roger is young, male, “frail” (Paragraph 16), and nervous, Mrs. Jones is older, female, “large” (Paragraph 1), and self-assured. Even their names accentuate the differences between them, with Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones’s four names dwarfing Roger’s one.

Initially, this contrast underscores the conflict between the two characters, but as the story progresses, it becomes clear that Mrs. Jones and Roger have more in common than one might suspect.