The Bean Eaters Poem Analysis

On June 17, 1917, Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas to Keziah and David. After Brooks’ birth, the family moved to Chicago where Brooks spent her childhood and remained until death. She was an avid writer from the young age of seven and at thirteen, Gwendolyn had her first published poem in the American Child magazine. After graduating from Woodrow Wilson Junior College in 1936, Brooks joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Youth Council. She then married Henry Blakely II in 1939 and gave birth to her son a year later, and then also gave birth to her daughter. Brooks came to know struggles of African Americans in her community and decided to teach creative writing to one of Chicago’s well-known youth gangs. She received the

Gwendolyn Brooks also was the first African

The story of the "old yellow pair," who eats beans relays the third person point of view, revealing the entirety of feelings and actions of the characters. However, the narrator never participates in the events brought to life. Lines 1 and 5, "They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair," (1) and "Two who are Mostly Good" (5) demonstrate Brooks' depict the characters through the eyes of an outside reader. Harold Bloom gives insight that "'The Bean Eaters' reveals Brooks's outlook on an elderly couple" explaining that Gwendolyn, herself as a possible suspect for the outside narrator. Although Harold can infer that Brooks narrates her own poem, no clear evidence of the name of whom the true reporter . The use of third person point of view can only reveal that an unidentified narrator looks at the bean eaters from the outside in to unfold their