Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool Analysis

During the 1900’s, society limited the rights of African Americans. Gwendolyn Brooks was a writer who experienced discrimination from the white population, and even African Americans who were fairer in complexion. She originally wrote about the oppression of African Americans, and their day-to-day struggles. Later on, she expanded her writings to include the struggles of African Americans everywhere. By the end of her life, she inspired thousands of young writers to write about things they’re passionate about. The impact Gwendolyn Brooks has on my life is incomparable to any other important figure I've studied. It's the steps that she took that made her a global leader and will impact my development as a global leader.

     Gwendolyn Brooks is the female poet who has been most responsive to changes in the black community, particularly in the community’s vision of itself. The first African American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize; she was considered one of America’s most distinguished poets well before the age of fifty. Known for her technical artistry, she has succeeded in forms as disparate as Italian terza rima and the blues. She has been praised for her wisdom and insight into the African Experience in America. Her works reflect both the paradises and the hells of the black people of the world. Her writing is objective, but her characters speak for themselves. Although the

The author uses tone and images throughout to compare and contrast the concepts of “black wealth” and a “hard life”. The author combines the use of images with blunt word combinations to make her point; for example, “you always remember things like living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet”. This image evokes the warmth of remembering a special community with the negative, have to use outdoor facilities. Another example of this combination of tone and imagery is “how good the water felt when you got your bath from one of those big tubs that folk in Chicago barbecue in”. Again the author’s positive memory is of feeling fresh after her bath combined with a negative, the fact that it was a barbecue drum.

The poem “We Real Cool” is a very powerful poem, although expressed with very few words. To me, this poem describes the bottom line of the well known “ghetto life”. It describes the desperate and what they need, other than the usual what they want, money. Without actually telling us all about the seven young men, it does tell us about them. The poem tells of the men’s fears, their ambitions, and who they think they are, versus who they really are.

This book is made up of two cycles of poems, each confronting the same subject: the characterization of a black man in white America. In this book, I plan to focus mainly on the first cycle and touch briefly on the second. The first cycle includes four different sections. In section one of cycle one, Eady writes about Susan Smith and Charles Stuart, two murderers who blamed their crimes on nonexistent black attackers. The first poem is called “How I Got Born” (Eady 5), in this poem the fictional young African American man is conjured up. In the upper right-hand corner of the page, Eady writes a note that explains who and what the speaker is: “The speaker is the young black man Susan Smith claimed kidnapped her children” (Eady 5). In the first few lines of the poem he says, “Susan Smith willed me alive/ At the moment/ Her babies sank into the lake” (l. 1-40). So right away he gives us a pretty straightforward explanation for what this poem is about and what this section will be about. In the next few poems, the narrator discusses his “existence” and reason for being created. Eady uses a lot of metaphors, similes and imagery in his poems, and he does a phenomenal job with imagery.

Through his poem “Theme for English B”, Langston Hughes expresses his will to exterminate discrimination by proving that despite different skin colors, Americans all share similarities and learn from each other. Langston wrote the poem in 1900, when black Americans were not considered Americans. He talks about a black student being assigned to write a paper about himself. The audience is thus the student’s professor – the representation of the white Americans. Since the professor said: “let that page come out of you---Then, it will be true.”, the student began wondering “if it’s that simple”. He then describes himself to explain why it isn’t simple: he is “twenty-two”, “the only colored in class”, and lives in the poor community Harlem.

Wealth is a symbol because the two Black men think of wealth as security, not being hungry anymore, warmth, and HAPPINESS.” But wealth is a two-way street. The white man, Edward, thinks of wealth as something to waste, and UNHAPPINESS.

As thorough and rewarding as Bradley’s close reading can be, it is this sole focus that becomes problematic in Book of Rhymes. He stays on the surface, privileging the discussion of linguistic elements over cultural impact. He begins his wordplay chapter with an anecdote about a friend who disapproves of the misogynistic and violent elements of the Notorious B.I.G.’s lyrics, a qualm addressed by Bradley in a customary manner: “It’s not what he’s saying, it’s how he’s saying it” (86). Bradley is partially correct; how he’s saying it is the aesthetically appealing aspect of hip hop, the reason millions of people around the world enjoy the music. But what he’s saying is the more compelling aspect. The environment that produced the attitudes reflected in hip hop, the source of Biggie’s misogyny and violent imagery, must be given its proper treatment in order to understand rap music on deeper levels than the beauty and complexity of its poetic structures.

Many tragic events happen in this short story that allows the reader to create an assumption for an underlying theme of racism. John Baldwin has a way of telling the story of Sonny’s drug problem as a tragic reality of the African American experience. The reader has to depict textual evidence to prove how the lifestyle and Harlem has affected almost everything. The narrator describes Harlem as “... some place I didn’t want to go. I certainly didn’t want to know how it felt. It filled everything, the people, the houses, the music, the dark, quicksilver barmaid, with menace; and this menace was their reality” (Baldwin 60). Another key part in this story is when the narrator and Sonny’s mother is telling the story of a deceased uncle. The mother explains how dad’s brother was drunk crossing the road and got hit by a car full of drunk white men. Baldwin specifically puts emphasis on the word “white” to describe the men for a comparison to the culture of dad and his brother.

The stereotypes in the story, makes it difficult for the readers to conclude the race of each character. People assume that the African American character would be illiterate and uneducated and the white character to be well-educated. During the time period of the story African Americans did not have access to a decent education; making it harder for them to learn just the basics. Whites had access to good education, making it easy to believe the white character is more educated. It is also believed that a person that is well educated will have a better lifestyle when they are older. A well-educated person will have a better job, paying more, and have a better opportunity to afford the means of a luxurious lifestyle. An under educated person will most likely live in poverty, struggle for their basic needs, or live in a declining neighborhood. Behavior is a harder stereo type to use to distinguish a race. Many assume that whites have an entitled attitude toward life. Whites had access to a good education and jobs, they had a “I’m better than you” attitude. On the other hand, many think African Americans were upset because of how easy it was for whites to have better access to the basic necessities such as education and housing.

When you live in the suburbs of Atlanta, it was easy to forget about whites. Whites were like those pigeons: real and existing, but rarely seen or thought about…everyone had seen white girls and their mother coo-coing over dresses; everyone had gone to downtown library and seen white businessmen swish by importantly, wrists flexed in front of them to check the time as though they would change from Clark Kent into Superman…those images were a fleeing as cards shuffled in a deck, where as the ten white girls behind us were real and memorable (179).

Common themes of komunyakaa's poems include black resilience, jazz, and wartime appeal. In February in Sydney He opens the poem with the image of jazz being played through a tenor sax. This poems allow the audience to see how jazz impacts Komunyakaa in such an emotional way when he says “music is an anesthetic.” The metaphor of jazz music numbing the pain allows for a momentary escape from the world of stereotypes and judgement towards African Americans.

Gwendolyn Brooks often expressed the prejudices of being an African American in her writing. In her 1959 popular poem “We Real Cool,” published as part of “The Bean Eaters” (Layng), Gwendolyn Brooks educates readers on what often befell African American youths that chose to leave school and engage in illegal activities. The poem describes

The depiction black struggles within Dunbar’s dialect poetry makes Dunbar’s poetry beneficial for the black race. For example, in “An Ante-bellum Sermon,” when Dunbar writes “But when Moses wif his powah Comes an' sets us chillun free, We will praise de gracious Mastah, Dat has gin us liberty; An' we'll shout ouah halleluyahs, On dat mighty reck'nin' day, When we'se reco'nised ez citiz', Huh uh! Chillun, let us pray!”, he is depicting a common feeling of African Americans. Although this poem takes place before the Civil War, and before Dunbar’s birth, both of Dunbar’s parents were ex-slaves, which gave him an understanding of slavery. With an understanding of slavery, Dunbar was able to depict the desire for slaves to be rid of the unjust system. Beyond that, the idea is still applicable to the time in which he lived. From one issue to another, people anticipate equality while in dire situations. Similarly, in “Song,” Dunbar depicts the harmful race relations from his time. Instead of the black experience being told from a sympathizer perspective, Dunbar has a better understanding of what it was like to be black in the 1890s. The competition and hate between flowers symbolizes the conflict between white and black people. Through this metaphor, especially at the end when they celebrate the death of all daisies when he writes “In de fiel’ de flags is wavin’ in a tantalizing’ way, Kin o’ ‘joicin’ case de daisies all is daid,” Dunbar depicts the hateful race relations of his time. Dunbar’s representation of black issues brings attention to them, which benefits African Americans.

A vignette from The House on Mango Street, "Those Who Don't," by Sandra Cisneros, the poem "My Parents Kept Me from Children Who Were Rough," by Stephen Spender, and another poem "We Real Cool," by Gwendolyn Brooks share many similarities and differences. These three pieces of literature talk about racism and rough children. "Those Who Don't" is about racism and how people think about others without getting to know them. "My Parents Kept Me from Children Who Were Rough" explains how a good child wants to be like other children who are bad. "We Real Cool" talks about pool players who are bad. These pieces of literature compare and contrast between figurative language, point of view, and theme.