Hanging Fire: Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Insecurity of Being a Teenager

A central theme in “Hanging Fire” relates to the insecurity of being a teenager. The speaker references a range of different insecurities throughout the poem. Some of these insecurities relate directly to her experience as an adolescent who’s going through puberty. For instance, she worries about the complexion of her skin and the school dance that’s just around the corner. Other insecurities are less personal and more structural, as in the case where someone else got invited to join the math team but she didn’t, even though she had good grades. In this case, the insecurity doesn’t reflect the speaker’s doubt about her own abilities so much as a more general uncertainty that pervades an unjust and inequitable world. Though difficult, this latter type of insecurity is something that every teenager must struggle to accept as a part growing up. What’s less typical is that the speaker seems to feel this latter type of insecurity on an existential level. Indeed, twice in the poem she wonders aloud if she’ll survive to see adulthood, much less the next morning. This existential type of insecurity is profoundly troubling to see in a teenager.

The Struggles of Black Girls and Women

The speaker’s insecurity seems related to her experience as a Black girl. Although not immediately obvious, we can infer that the speaker is Black based on the reference she makes in the first stanza to her “ashy” knees. Additionally, Audre Lorde wrote poetry from her perspective as a Black woman. With these details in mind, it becomes important to consider how what the speaker says in the poem may be related to her racial identity. Such a lens is crucial for understanding how the speaker’s anxieties aren’t simply a matter of being a teenager. Although many of her insecurities are indeed typical of many teenage girls, her racial identity adds additional complexity and intensity to these insecurities.

Furthermore, reading the poem through the lens of race sheds important light on the significance of the speaker’s relationship—or lack thereof—with her mother. The separation of mother and daughter in this poem suggests a deeper crisis in Black womanhood. Although we readers don’t have any concrete information about why the speaker’s mother has withdrawn, we can infer that her own challenges, like her daughter’s, might be informed by her experiences as a Black woman. Though isolated from one another, both mother and daughter are clearly struggling.

The Endangerment of Black Life

For a fourteen-year-old girl, the speaker has an unusual preoccupation with death. Twice in the poem she worries out loud about whether she will die young. In the first stanza, she wonders if she’ll die before the morning. Then, in the second stanza, she wonders if she’ll die before she reaches adulthood. The speaker doesn’t reference any concrete threats to her life, which initially makes it seem that her concern about premature death is related to a more pervasive and generalized anxiety. However, her fear also arguably stems from a growing—though perhaps not fully conscious—awareness of racial injustice and the harm such injustice inflicts on Black people’s psychic and physical well-being. The speaker’s preoccupation with death is therefore a thematically resonant reflection of the endangerment of Black life.

The poem’s title further underscores this theme. “Hang fire” is an idiomatic phrase meaning “delayed progress,” but it originally referred to an unexpected delay between the triggering and firing of a gun. Though the title serves as a general metaphor for the teenage years that separate childhood and adulthood, it also harbors a threat of violence that could come at any moment.

Previous section Setting Next section Motifs