Little Fires Everywhere & Poems by Langston Hughes

Little Fires Everywhere Rating: 4.5 of 5

"Harlem," "Mother to Son," and "Madam and Her Madam" Ratings: all legendary!!!

Overview

With the COVID-19 quarantine, and the upsurge of TV-watching, I figured today's teacher text— Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng— would be of particular interest, given that it has just been released as a TV mini-series. I recently read Little Fires Everywhere and was absolutely captivated by its nuanced exploration of motherhood, the intersection of race and gender, white privilege and fragility, and the fallacy of the American Dream. After reading it, I briefly scanned my mental catalogue for student-friendly novels that offered similarly heartfelt examination of these same themes. A few novels came to mind, but none—from my perspective at least— would leave the reader with that feeling of being slightly unsettled, questioning, full of disgust, pity, admiration, humility, sorrow and hope, all at the same time. These were the feelings that make Little Fires Everywhere so stirring, so deeply unforgettable.

With no YA novel quite able to compare to Celeste Ng's masterpiece, I turn in this post to poetry by one of the greats: Langston Hughes. The Hughes' poems I selected allow students to experience a comparably provocative mix of poignance, hope, and even humor.

This post will be a little different than most. Normally, I stick to analyzing written texts in my posts. However, since having time to watch TV is suddenly a reality for teachers, I feel the television adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere deserves comment. Moreover, the television adaptation holds such exquisite potential for controversy; I am all too tempted add my voice to the debates. And finally, becoming critically literate— an essential skill for teachers— involves not just the ability to closely examine and critique written texts, but the ability to closely examine and critique audiovisual texts as well. Let's start with this one.

First, I'll provide an overview of Little Fires Everywhere (teacher text). Then I examine how the poems by Langston Hughes (student texts) complement the novel. Finally, we'll delight in a juicy discussion of the Little Fires Everywhere TV series.

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A Brief Introduction to the Teacher Text

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

"Sometimes, just when you think everything's gone, you find a way... Like after a prairie fire... It seems like the end of the world. The earth is all scorched and black and everything green is gone. But after the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow" (Ng 295).

Little Fires Everywhere is set in the 1990s, and follows the story of Mia Warren and Elena Richardson, two moms, who face completely different realities in life, but whose lives suddenly become connected due to their children's mutual interest in each other. Mia is African American, a traveling artist, contented with few material possessions, and haunted by a mysterious past, which she keeps secret— even from her daughter. Elena is a Stepford-esque housewife, who has followed the stereotypical life plan of a wealthy white person: go to college, start a career, get married, buy a huge house with a sprawling lawn, and have children whose smiling portraits can decorate the cathedral walls of that huge house with the sprawling lawn.

Elena's life is seemingly more put-together than Mia's— at least in a material sense— and she prides herself in this. She survives on the belief that she lives and deserves a "good" life by telling herself that she has earned it by making superior decisions than people who have fewer material means. Mia calls this belief into question by presenting the reality that people like Elena— who live lives of wealth and comfort— "[don't] make good choices," but rather "[have] good choices," due to privileges afforded by their race, family background, etc.. Moreover, Mia causes Elena to question whether having greater material means truly equates to having a happier life, and whether Elena is truly the "good" person she wants to believe she is. Elena, threatened by the slow shattering of her own self-perception, channels her insecurities into a desperate search to uncover Mia's carefully hidden past.

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How Hughes Complements Ng

An Overview of Shared Themes

in "Madam and Her Madam," "Harlem," and "Mother to Son"

Who was Langston Hughes?

Langston Hughes was an African American poet whose poems served as a platform for conveying the oppression burdening black people in America. He attended Columbia University briefly in the 1920s and ended up dropping out; nevertheless, he became a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance. His poems, though written in the early-mid 1900s, convey truths that still apply to the reality of race in American today.

"Madam and Her Madam"

The speaker of "Madam and Her Madam" is presumably an African American housekeeper, who performs backbreaking labor in her service to the woman, "Madam," who heads the household. Madam wants to believe that her relationship with the housekeeper is characterized by good intention and, even, "love" (Hughes, line 20). This belief is clearly delusional; the speaker, in the final lines of the poem, clarifies that their relationship is not— and perhaps cannot be— characterized by affection. The implication, here, is that feelings of sincere affection are precluded by the inherently unequal power dynamics between "Madam" and her African American maid.

Ng, likewise, explores how unjust power dynamics thwart the effect of words or actions that could, otherwise, be interpreted as compassionate. When Elena first meets Mia, she feels a sense of pity towards her, and decides to rent one of the family residences to her and to hire her as a housekeeper for the Richardson's own home. In Elena's mind, this is a "form of charity" (Ng 12), and she hopes that Mia will, in turn, "appreciate her kindness" (Ng 13). The language used to describe Elena's attitude towards Mia connotes a sense of superiority and paternalism. The term "charity" implies that Mia is helpless, dependent on Elena as a higher power to fulfill her needs. Moreover, Elena's desire for Mia to "appreciate her kindness" demonstrates that her supposed acts of kindness are self-serving, rather than selfless. Elena's selfish delusions about her own "philanthropy" ( Ng 67) are troubling, yet also amusing in the sense that Mia sees right through her shallow gestures. Likewise, the final two lines of "Madam and Her Madam" provides a humorous shift in power, when the speaker bluntly tells Madam "I'll be dogged/ If I love you" (Hughes, lines 23-24).

"Harlem"

This poem explores the universal theme of lost dreams, which is particularly applicable to Elena's character in Little Fires Everywhere. Though Ng never provides a backstory on Elena's sense of loss, she heavily implies that Elena is unfulfilled by her life as a wealthy suburban housewife, and that perhaps her choice to follow a cookie-cutter life plan kept her from a greater source of happiness. This is especially clear in the scene in which Mia addresses Elena's insecurities:

'It bothers you, doesn't it?' Mia said suddenly. 'I think you can't imagine. Why anyone

would choose a different life from the one you've got. Why anyone might want

something other than a big house with a big lawn, a fancy car, a job in an office. Why

anyone would choose anything different than what you'd choose... It terrifies you. That

you missed out on something... What was it? Was it a boy? Was it a vocation? Or was it a

whole life?' (Ng 302-303)

The Little Fires Everywhere television adaptation makes explicit Ng's reference to Elena's lost dreams, devoting an entire episode to answer the questions Mia poses in this passage. In the show, Elena's lost dreams involve all three: the boy, the vocation, and ultimately, a whole life made up of those two passions.

Both the show, in its explicit reference to Elena's "dream[s] deferred" (Hughes, lines 1-2), and the book in its more implicit references, enable us to empathize with Elena's otherwise quite irksome character. As the story unfolds, we see that paternalistic attitude towards Mia stems from a desperate desire to deem the life she could have had— one of fulfilling one's passions with little care for the opinions of others— as inferior to the one she currently has.

"Mother to Son"

The speaker in "Mother to Son" has encountered a number of challenges in life, and tells her son to expect similar obstacles in his life's journey. Yet, the poem maintains a tone of hope as the speaker encourages her son to persevere ("don't you turn back" (Hughes, line 16). She explains that, despite the trials she's faced, she's "still climbin'"(22). The tone is likewise, affectionate, as evidenced by the speaker calling her son "honey"(21). This affectionate tone perhaps implies that the speaker warns her son of life's awaiting struggles not to frighten him, but, rather, because she cares about him and is looking out for him.

The poem, likewise, alludes to a link between social class and hardship with its juxtaposing imagery of a "crystal" (Hughes, line 2) staircase with one that is broken down and splintering, with "boards torn up" and "places with no carpet on/ the floor" (Hughes, lines 6-7).

In Little Fires Everywhere, this juxtaposing imagery is likewise present in the descriptions of the Richardson's castle-like home in contrast with the Warren's reality of living out of a suitcase and living paycheck to paycheck. Mia, like the speaker in "Mother to Son" seeks to warn her daughter, Pearl, of the inevitable hardships she will face due to her race and class. It is clear that Mia is less concerned about the material hardships Pearl may face, and is more preoccupied by the social and emotional burdens— especially living in a predominantly rich and white community— that Pearl will be forced to carry. This manifests most clearly in her constant worry that Pearl is "fall[ing] under the spell" (Ng 39) of the Richardson family and the material wealth that so defines them, and in the process losing her sense of personal identity and self-respect.

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And Finally... The Show!

Before providing a brief overview of the controversies in the Little Fires Everywhere TV series, here is a trailer:

Why It is Controversial:

Mia, the angry, promiscuous, drug-abusing black woman

In the book, Mia is calm and collected. She chooses her words wisely, and acts with careful intention. Though she never behaves solely to please others, yet speaks her mind with tact and precision. Her sex life isn't mentioned, and any abuse of drugs would seem out of character. Meanwhile, the show transforms her into a a figure that is cold, unpredictable, and explosive. The TV version of Mia regularly smokes pot, regularly leaves her stash about for her daughter and her daughter's friends to experiment with, on occasion experiments with harder drugs, and sleeps with men (or women) she may or may not know.

This is problematic, given that black women are often stereotyped as being angry and promiscuous, and black people in general are often disproportionately associated with drug abuse.

So why did the producers make these changes to Mia's character? Was it a money-making strategy? And, if so, were the extra dollars worth reinforcing widespread and deeply harmful stereotypes about black women?

And they all became lesbians...

In the book, neither Izzy's nor Mia's sexual orientation is central to the storyline. Yet in the show, suddenly Izzy is a lesbian and Mia is bisexual. At first, I saw this as perhaps a well-intended gesture of inclusivity to viewers who identify as part of the LGBTQ community.

But then, I thought about it a little more, and became concerned by two considerations:

1) Mia's lesbian relationship comes off as just another opportunity to emphasize her sexual drive. By the time the show inserts the graphic lesbian sex scene, Mia has already starred in an equally graphic sex scene of her in a car with a seemingly random guy (while her daughter is sleeping in the back seat), and yet another with her drug-dealing boss from a local restaurant who she has no actual interest in. In each case, the context of Mia's sexual encounter is ethically questionable. First, it's in front of her daughter. Next, it's with her drug-dealing boss. Then, the lesbian relationship is with her university professor. Mia's sexual relationships seem to be another ploy to present her as careless and morally loose, which is the opposite of how Ng portrayed her in the book.

2) Izzy's sexual orientation is used as an explanation for why she is "troubled."In an interview, the executive director, Lauren Neustadter defended the choice to make Izzy a lesbian, stating, "What if it was something that [Izzy] was grappling with but in the book she didn't have the words to say it out loud, but in the show she did?"... Seems like a stretch to me! If Ng had made the tiniest reference to Izzy's sexuality, I could get on board with that explanation. But to me it is troubling to assume that, because Izzy seems unhappy and rebellious in the book, she MUST be gay.

***Those are just a few controversies that caught my attention. But viewers, feel free to chime in with your own thoughts and opinions!

I also want to mention that, just because I struggle with aspects of the show, I nevertheless enjoy watching and engaging in dialogue surrounding it! ***

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Supplementary Reading for Teachers

1) The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes: a novel that explores encounters between black people and white people in the early 1920s and 30s.

2) White Fragility by Robin Di'Angelo: a nonfiction text that explores reactions of white people to race talk.

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A Supplementary TV Show for the COVID Quarantine: Big Little Lies

If you love Reese Witherspoon, and enjoy exploring issues pertaining to class, social image, and motherhood, Big Little Lies, based on Liane Moriarty's best-selling novel, may be for you! See the trailer below:

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References

Hughes, Langston. "Harlem."Poetry Foundation, 2002,

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46548/harlem. Accessed 11 April 2020.

Hughes, Langston. "Madam and Her Madam." Academy of American Poets, 1994,

https://poets.org/poem/madam-and-her-madam. Accessed 11 April 2020.

Hughes, Langston. "Mother to Son." Poetry Foundation, 2002,

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47559/mother-to-son. Accessed 11 April

2020.

Ng, Celeste. Little Fires Everywhere. Penguin Random House LLC, New York, 2017.