Langston Hughes

Sick Room

Sick Room - meaning Summary

Illness Between Life and Death

The poem presents a small, hushed scene in which a woman lies in a sickroom between the opposing forces of life and death. Hughes frames illness as a tense, intimate liminal state where silence and shared suffering dominate. The image of the woman and the two 'lovers' suggests an ambiguous relationship among living, dying, and pain, emphasizing the quiet, suspended atmosphere of vulnerability and inevitability.

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How quiet It is in this sick room Where on the bed A silent woman lies between two lovers- Life and Death, And all three covered with a sheet of pain.

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