The poem’s main theme centers on injustice and inhumanity. While the historical context situates the poem at a time of state-sanctioned racism in the United States and the succession of deadly wars in the 20th century, the figurative language shows how, throughout time, injustice and brutality pervade human society. It is as if cruelty and oppression are ever-present or endless. Each question could point to an injustice Dylan witnessed in the early 1960s, or to grave wrongs that existed before the poem and continue in contemporary times. The durable symbolism gives the poem a persistent relevance. Regardless of where or when the reader engages with the poem, the lack of specifics allows them to connect the theme to their current situation.

One of the key injustices is inequality. People do not treat other people as equals. People create labels and categories that dehumanize people and cast them as expendable and liable to violence or death. The speaker takes on this inequality when they ask, “How many roads must a man walk down / Before you call him a man?” (Lines 1-2). Some people get to be human; others do not. The focus on inequality resumes when the speaker asks, “[H]ow many years can some people exist / Before they’re allowed to be free?” (Lines 11-12).