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The Weary Blues Mother To NAME CLASS DATE LrrE RATU RE ACTWIrY The Weary Blues The Harlem Renaissance was a resurgence of literature, art, and music that centered in New York’s Harlem during the 1920s. Langston Hughes, who was known as the Poet Laureate of Harlem, wrote about the movement: ‘We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark- skinned selves without fear or shame.. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too... We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves.” The poem that follows was published in Hughes’s first volume, The Weary Blues, in 1926. Mother to Son Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare. But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now— For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. 1. In what ways is this poem both universal and specific? In your answer, con sider the main idea of the poem, the speaker, and the person being addressed. 2. Why is the image of a crystal stair a particularly vivid one? 3. Predicting Consequences How might life have been different for the speaker if life had been a crystal stair 2 1 6 • Literature Activity Chapter 21 Survey Edition Chapter 11 Modern American History Edition DATE NAME CLASS I ‘TLWY Tales of the Jazz Age C is considered to be the spokesperson for the Jazz Age, the frenetic H F. Scott Fitzgerald A decade following World War I. Years later, he wrote that he was grateful to the p Jazz Age because “it bore him up, flattered him and gave him more money than T people that he felt as they did.” The excerpt E he had dreamed of, simply for telling R JazzAge, a collection of short stories published in 1922. below is from Tales of the 21 As you read, think about how the main characters reflect the new manners and morals of the 1920s. The Jelly-bean The Jelly-bean walked out on the porch to a “For the gum of course. I’ve got to get it off. I deserted corner, dark between the moon on the can’t dance with gum on.” lawn and the single lighted door of the ballroom. Obediently Jim turned to the cars and began the There he found a chair and, lighting a cigarette, inspecting them with a view to obtaining drifted into the thoughtless reverie that was his desired solvent. usual mood. “Here,” he said after a moment’s search. Suddenly the square of yellow light that fell He turned the spout; a dripping began.... through the door was obscured by a dark figure. “Ah,” she sighed contentedly, “let it all out. in it.” A girl had come out of the dressing-room and was The only thing to do is to wade full and standing on the porch not more that ten feet away. In desperation he turned on the tap tiny rivers Jim heard a low-breathed “doggone” and then the pool suddenly widened sending she turned and saw him. It was Nancy Lamar. and trickles in all directions. Jim rose to his feet. “That’s fine. That’s something like.” “Howdy?” Raising her skirts she stepped gracefully in. “Hello—” She paused, hesitated and then “I know this’fl take it off,” she murmured. and approached. “Oh, it’s—Jim Powell.” She stepped daintily out of the gasolene . running- He bowed slightly, tried to think of a casual began scraping her slippers.. on the contained remark. board of the automobile. The Jelly-bean with explosive “Do you suppose,” she began quickly, “I himself no longer. He bent double mean—do you know anything about gum?” laughter and after a second she joined in. you?” “What?” “You’re here with Clark Darrow, aren’t the veranda. “I’ve got gum on my shoe. Some utter ass left she asked as they walked back toward his or her gum on the floor and of course I “Yes,” stepped in it.” “You know where he is now?” Jim blushed, inappropriately. “Out dancin’, I reckon.” me a highball.” “Do you know how to get it off?” she “The deuce. He promised right. I demanded petulantly. “Well,” said Jim, “I guess that’ll be all right here in my pocket.” “Why— I think maybe gasolene—” got his bottle The words had scarcely left his lips when She smiled at him radiantly. ginger ale she grasped his hand and pulled him at a run “I guess maybe you’ll need though,” he added. off the low veranda, .. toward a group of cars parked in the moonlight by the first hole of the “Not me. Just the bottle.” golf course. “Sure enough?” “Turn on the gasolene,” she commanded She laughed scornfully. any man can. breathlessly. “Try me. I can drink anything “What?” Let’s sit down.” Chapter2l LiteratureActivity • 29 © Prentice-Hall, Inc. NAME CLASS DATE LWLI!L!ALUREACTIVITY (continued) She perched herself on the side of a table. aren’t really worth dressing up for or doing Taking out the cork she held the flask to her lips sensational things for. Don’t you know?” and took a long drink. He watched her fascinated. “I suppose so—I mean I suppose not,” C “Like it?” murmured Jim. H “No, but I like the way it makes me feel. I “And I’d like to do ‘em all. I’m really the only A p think most people are that way.” girl in town that has style.” T Jim agreed. She stretched out her arms and yawned E “My daddy liked it too well. It got him.” pleasantly. R “American men,” said Nancy gravely, “don’t “Like to have boat,” she suggested dreamily. 21 know how to drink.” “Like to sail out on a silver lake, say the Thames, “What?” Jim was startled. for instance. Have champagne and caviare sand “In fact,” she went on carelessly, “they don’t wiches along. Have about eight people. And one know how to do anything very well. The one of the men would jump overboard to amuse the thing I regret in my life is that I wasn’t born in party and get drowned like a man did with Lady England.” Diana Manners once.” “In England?. Do you like it over there?” “Did he do it to please her?” “Yes. Immensely. I’ve never been there in “Didn’t mean drown himself to please her. person, but I’ve met a lot of Englishmen who He just meant to jump overboard and make were over here in the army, Oxford and everybody laugh.” Cambridge men—you know. —and of course “I reckin they just died laughin’ when he I’ve read a lot of English novels.” drowned.” Jim was interested, amazed. “Oh, I suppose they laughed a little,” she “D’ you ever hear of Lady Diana Manners?” admitted. “I imagine she did, anyway. She’s she asked earnestly. pretty hard, I guess—like I am,” No, Jim had not. “You hard?” “Well, she’s what I’d like to be. Dark, you “Like nails.” She yawned again and added, know, like me, and wild as sin. She’s the girl who “Give me a little more from that bottle,” rode her horse up the steps of some cathedral or Jim hesitated but she held out her hand church or something and all the novelists made defiantly. their heroines do it afterwards.” “Don’t treat me like a girl,” she warned him. Jim nodded politely. He was out of his depths. “I’m not like any girl you ever saw.” She consid “Pass the bottle.” suggested Nancy. “I’m ered. “Still, perhaps you’re right. You got—you going to take another little one. A little drink got old head on young shoulders.” wouldn’t hurt a baby. She jumped to her feet and moved toward the “You see,” she continued, again breathless door. The Jelly-bean rose also. after a draught. “People over there have style. “Good-bye,” she said politely, “good-bye. Nobody has style here, I mean the boys here Thanks, Jelly-bean.” Reprinted with permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Company, from THE SHORT STORIES OF F. SCOTT’ FITZGERALD, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Copyright © 1920 by Metropolitan Publications, Inc. Copyright renewed 1948 by Zelda Fitzgerald. 1. In what ways does Nancy Lamar represent a typical flapper? Cite details from the excerpt to substantiate your answer. 2. Determining Relevance How do Jim and Nancy reflect the revolution in morals and manners that characterized the 1920s? 30 • Chapter 21 LiteratureActivity © Prentice-Halt, Inc. Name Date . LITERATURE SELECTION from The Big Money by John Dos Passos In The Big Money (1936), one of the novels in his trilogy, U.S.A., Dos Passos uses a Section 1 series of shifting scenes to explore American life. In this excerpt, he focuses on the Sacco- Vanzetti case. The “newsreel” section intersperses news headlines with the lyrics to a song to give a feel for the times.
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