Giles, James R. Claude McKay.Boston: Twayne Publish-
ers, 1976.
McKay, Claude. Home to Harlem.Boston: Northeastern
University Press, 1987.
“Hongry Fire” Marita Bonner(1939)
A short story by MARITABONNERabout the rem-
edy that an invalid mother and wife uses to regain
peace and stability in her chaotic household.
Published in the December 1939 issue of THE
CRISIS,“Hongry Fire” opens with as a distressed
mother worried about the quality of housework
that her daughter Margaret is doing for her. Un-
able to relinquish responsibility for the laundry,
cooking, and upkeep of the house entirely, Ma is
frustrated by her cardiac condition and the doc-
tor’s strict orders that she remain on bed rest. Her
condition is tested sorely over the course of the
story as she hears frightening tales about her chil-
dren’s clandestine relationships, secret marriages,
and slow, but seemingly sure, decline into the fast
life of alcohol and socializing.
Ma, a woman who clearly is suffering from her
physical limitations and her will to preserve the
order in her family, is thoroughly challenged when
her son Artie marries a woman named Jule and
brings her to live in the home. Jule has an unsa-
vory reputation, and Ma becomes convinced that
her new and unwelcome daughter-in-law is cor-
rupting her children. Through a hole in the floor,
Ma keeps tabs as best she can on the conversa-
tions, plots, and mischief that transpire. Eventu-
ally she arrives at a plan to stop Jule, the woman
whom she regards as a “hongry fire—burning up
the house.” She laces a glass of brandy with the
sleeping medicine that she herself should be tak-
ing and insists that the girl drink. The unsuspect-
ing girl imbibes the beverage and within minutes,
Ma listens as Jule stumbles into her room and falls
onto the bed. “There was no more humming.
There was no more yawning,” reports the narrator.
Having achieved Jule’s death, Ma finally takes
“her share” of the medicine and begins to rest,
sure that the “fire” not only “slept” but “was out.”
“The Hongry Fire” is one of several short sto-
ries in which Bonner explored families in crisis and
upheaval. Her works tended to contain jarring so-
lutions and tragic ends and underscored the kind
of domestic tensions that plagued families of color
and the domestic ideals that prompted them to
employ dramatic solutions to preserve themselves
and their loved ones.Bibliography
Bonner, Marita. Frye Street and Environs: The Collected
Works of Marita Bonner,edited by Joyce Flynn and
Joyce Occomy Stricklin. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987.Hope, Hugh
A pseudonym that writer CLAUDEMCKAY fre-
quently used for the articles that he published in
the British journal WORKER’SDREADNOUGHTdur-
ing the early 1920s.Hope, John(1868–1936)
The president of ATLANTAUNIVERSITY, the first
African-American graduate school, alma mater of
JAMESWELDONJOHNSON, and the school where
W. E. B. DUBOISand WILLIAMSTANLEYBRAITH-
WAITEwere on the faculty. Hope, the first African-
American president of Atlanta University, was a
recognized leader in American education. It was
he who championed the value of liberal arts educa-
tion for African Americans and thus challenged
the emphasis on vocational training espoused by
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON. Hope received the
William Harmon Award in 1929 for “Distinguished
Achievement Among Negroes.” The founder of
the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, Hope
was an essayist whose writing appeared in journals
such as OPPORTUNITY,the official journal of the
NATIONALURBANLEAGUE.
John Hope was born in Augusta, Georgia, to
James and Mary Hope, an interracial couple. His
father was a wealthy Scottish businessman who
lived openly with Mary, a free mulatto woman and
the daughter of a formerly enslaved woman. Unfor-
tunately, the family was prevented from claiming
James Hope’s sizable estate when he died. Unlike
two of his sisters who passed for white, John Hope
lived as a man of color. He received his education
in the North. After completing four years at
Worcester Academy in Massachusetts, where he
graduated with honors, he earned a bachelor’s de-
gree from BROWNUNIVERSITYin 1894. He spentHope, John 245