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Essay On The Bean Eaters

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The True Meaning of Gwendolyn Brooks’ Bean Eaters

Bewildered by the racial and economic difficulties among her fellow Chicagoans in 1960, Pulitzer Prize Winner Gwendolyn Brooks wrote the authentic poem The Bean Eaters. In her poem The Bean Eaters, Brooks alludes to the lasting effects of poverty, isolation, and social injustice. Therefore, while maintaining an eye on her allusions, in this analysis, I will analyze the characters, mood, and theme of Brooks’ popular poem.
In her poem, Brooks has two central characters; she refers to them as an old yellow pair. Moreover, beyond associating their skin with the color yellow, which doesn’t identify their race or sex, Brook alludes that the old pair is poor. By using phrases like “they eat mostly beans,” “plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,” and “rented backed rooms,” not only is the reader able to deduce that the pair is …show more content…

In her poem, Brooks wrote about two characters whom, we speculate, weren’t originally poor; yet, throughout the piece, she writes without any ambition or call for change for them. This is Brooks way of displaying the prideful and classist culture of the fifties and sixties. In 1960, being on government assistance was worst than just being poor; in the words of many financial analysis of that time, there is no “free” meal. Henceforth, the prideful and classist culture discouraged many deprived citizens to seek the government for help; ultimately this led to numerous social injustices.
Therefore, bewildered by the racial and economic difficulties among her fellow Chicagoans in 1960, Pulitzer Prize Winner Gwendolyn Brook wrote the authentic poem The Bean Eaters. In her poem The Bean Eater, which had two unidentified central characters, Brook alludes to the lasting effects of poverty and isolation. The gloomy poem was meant to show people of the sixties, and even of today, how classism rouses social

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