In his one-act play "Soul Gone Home," Langston Hughes depicts Ronnie and his
mother in a complex and tragic situation, and the final lines
of the play further underscore the complexity and
tragedy.
During the course of the play, Ronnie accuses his mother of having been an
unloving, terrible mother because he grew up undernourished and on the streets.
His undernourishment is the reason why he has contracted tuberculosis and died
young. Even his mother's prostitution was not enough to bring needed money into
the household. While these criticisms Ronnie has of his mother are true, what
he fails to understand is that one reason why they are poor is because his
father left them to fend for themselves. In his mother's words, Ronnie's father
"ruint" her, meaning impregnated her outside of wedlock, making her unsuitable
for any other man to marry; therefore, she was forced to take...
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up prostitution to provide for herself and Ronnie, whom she calls her
"little bastard."
On the one hand, Ronnie's mother resents Ronnie's birth since
she blames his birth on their circumstances, just as Ronnie blames his mother
for their circumstances. Yet, on the other hand, she is saddened by his
loss and says her tears show her love. The complexity of her emotions
and of her situation are reflected in her final lines:
Tomorrow, Ronnie, I'll buy you some flowers—if I can pick up a dollar tonight. You was a hell of a no-good son. I swear!
The fact that she is leaving to keep earning her income as a prostitute, rather then tending to Ronnie's funeral, shows that she knows she must keep facing the harsh reality of life—she has to keep fending for herself through any means she has. In addition, her comment that Ronnie was a "no-good son" further expresses her resentment of his birth, since she blames her situation on his birth. Yet, despite this blame, her thought that she will buy her son some flowers shows that, like any mother, she had genuine feelings for her son, even if those feelings were clouded by resentment due to the harshness and complexity of her situation.