Essays on Gwendolyn Brooks

Question 1

The play “Waiting for Godot” functions with explicitly stipulated rules. The main characters in the play are Vladimir and Estragon. They are referred to as tramps in the play. The world in the play contains a lot of uncertainty. Nothing happens in the play, and there is always nothing to do. Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for a man referred to in the play as Godot. The tramps are uncertain about their actions. There are not sure they are waiting for Godot at the correct location and if it is on the right day. They are also unaware if ...

In the poem “Gwendolyn Brooks” (1969), Madhubuti describes the acclaim that Brooks received in this predominately “whites only” publishing edifice. The speaker in “Gwendolyn Brooks” inveighs against Brook’s reception by white literati. Mudhubuti states sardonically, “a whi-te critical said: /’she’s a credit to the Negro race.’” All through the 1960s, Brooks gains a large black readership. In this context, her; largely connects Brooks’ evolution from a “Negro poet” to the black aesthetic that emerged in the 1960s. The second stanza, in which Madhubuti presents the explosive nature of this black aesthetic, begins with the words, “into ...

A Comparison Essay

Four Poems: A Comparison Essay The four poems that I must compare are "Life" by Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Life Through My Eyes" by Tupac Shakur, "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks, and "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson. There are many similarities and differences between all of the poems. They all have different structures and styles, but the themes are similar. They also have different settings. The main thing that is the same in the poems is that they all deal with life and death. Each of these poems has a different structure. The ...

Bronzeville Woman in a Red Hat is a poem written by Gwendolyn Brooks and published in her famous collection of poems known as The Bean Eaters in 1960. Set in Bronzeville, where the poet is believed to have grown up, the poem narrates of the experiences of a black woman looking for a job as a housecleaner. The Bronzeville lady undergoes humiliation at the hands of a white family, and this is what the poem is all about; exposing some misconceptions the society might have on some of its members. On the other hand, Telephone Conversation is a poem written by Wole Soyinka, and it depicts a ...

Essay 1

Maya Angelou was born in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her experience of the brutality and inhumanity of slavery were pivotal in creating a literature giant whose works have continued to inspire generations of readers and writers. In the poem “I know why the Caged Bird Sings” Angelou utilizes stylistic technique to unwrap the themes of freedom and segregation (“Maya Angelou: Global Renaissance Woman”).

This poem is fashioned around the experiences of two birds. One is free and the other is caged. The free bird is able to scale heights and enjoy its unrestricted life. In contrast, the caged bird ...

Critical Analysis

Poem Critical Analysis Introduction This article is about the poems Sonnet 116 written by William Shakespeare, Holly Sonnet 14 written by John Donne, and Ballad of Chocolate Mabbie by Gwendolyn Brooks. In this article, we will share the backgrounds of each poem so we can somehow get the idea behind these poems. These renowned writers of our history can consider these a work of art. These poems also show how the writers wrote their piece in a different manner using different terms. Also, in this article, we’ll have the idea on how these authors expressed their thoughts about a ...

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Readings: The poems used for the lesson plan are namely: “America” by Claude McKay, “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop and “Coal” by Audre Lore. Objective of lesson: Psychological criticism in literature observes the text and the author. The symbolism used in the writing is scrutinized and observed as workings of the human mind that are for interpretation. These writings are analyzed according to the author and the characters of the literary piece. This kind of approach uses theories of those in the field of psychology. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis is often used in literary criticism. His theories are ...

An Analysis

‘The Mother’ written by Gwendolyn Brooks very poignantly conveys the emotions of a mother when she gets a fetus aborted. The poem has expressed that abortion is only a means to get rid of the body of the unborn child but cannot let the mother escape its memories and emotions. The entire poem has very movingly illuminated that how much an unborn child is linked to its mother. When an abortion is done, the child is helplessly killed and deprived of a life which it could live ("Analysis of The Mother by Gwendolyn Brooks."). And there is a great emphasis on the pain ...

A Critical Analysis of “She dwelt among the untrodden ways” by William Wordsworth

A Critical Analysis of “The Pool Players” by Gwendolyn Brooks The poem entitled “The Pool Players” written by Gwendolyn Brooks was particularly interesting due to an interplay of three literary elements: the form, the content, and the figurative language used. The current discourse hereby aims to provide a critical analysis of this particular poem using these three elements. Likewise, one would eventually assess how these elements affected one’s response to the poem, in its entirety. The form was unique since the diction (“the term that describes the use of words in written and oral expression” and ...

The poem entitled “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks interprets like an excerpt out of African American history. As a single work, it signifies a small piece of the struggle as experienced by African Americans, women specifically. The poem itself is about Abortion. Ironically, the statistical trend of Abortion is proportionally high in comparison to other cultures to this day. Abortions in the black community peak at about 35% of all abortions in total while the black community (both foreign and those with slave ancestry) only account for about 10% of the entire population of the country. Ms. Brooks’ poem dates ...

Analysis - "The Mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks

In Gwendolyn Brooks' "The Mother," the regret and guilt that a woman experiences upon reflecting on the various abortions she has had throughout her life is presented in an intriguing and haunting way. The woman is beset with remorse and sadness at what she perceives as the lives she has taken away before they started, and yet she never truly and fully regrets the choices that she made. The suffering that the mother expresses in this poem is done through Brooks' expert use of figurative language and repetition, as the potential these children had before her abortions, as she sees ...

African American Deracination and its Presentation in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Gwendolyn Brooks’ “Sadie and Maud”

It could be argued that the whole experience of African Americans in the U.S.A. is one of forced and violent deracination. African Americans are doubly, triply, deracinated and without roots. Violently uprooted from Africa, they entered a system of slavery in which, at the whim of their owners, they could be uprooted again and separated from children, lovers and family. In the period following the American Civil War many African –Americans moved north to find work in the north’s industrial cities – thus becoming geographically uprooted yet again. It is no wonder that deracination – the sense of being without real ...

The portrait of black urban life that emerges from the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks is a very mixed one. On the one hand, she uses colloquial language to describe the lives and destinies of black youth in urban areas, although she also mixes very informal language with highly ornate expression as if to show how barren their lives are. Elsewhere she presents a largely pessimistic view of the black experience of urban life, but manages, at the same time, to demonstrate signs of hope.

In “We Real Cool” she uses the language of young black men to comment on their self-centredness ...