“Comparison of the Sisters” There are so many ways to write literature. One of the most difficult styles is poetry, which is why many writers have trouble writing it, and/or getting any popularity from it. But from time to time there comes a poet who is exceptionally good at writing poetry. Edgar Allan Poe, Shakespeare, or in this case Gwendolyn Brooks. But like most poets, Brooks was not born a famous poet. Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas. Both her parents were very supportive of their daughter 's passion for writing, and because of that, Brooks was able to get a poem published when she was just 13. When she was a junior in college she published her first collection of poems, going by the name of A Street in Bronzeville. This particular poem is called “Sadie and Maud”, which was taken from the collection A Street in Bronzeville. It involves two sisters who demonstrate the two different ways that a black …show more content…
For education, the poem explains that only a few were able to go to college and those who didn 't go to college would have trouble in their lives, as mentioned in the first section about Sadie, “Sadie scraped life/with a fine tooth comb.” As for society, the poem refers to how the family is in shame when Sadie had 2 babies without getting married, “Sadie bore two babies/Under her maiden name./Maud and Ma and Papa/Nearly died of shame.” This section also applies to women at the time as well, explaining that women were shamed on if they were to do something against society. Along with this, the poem also mentions parts about life for African-American women, making mention that not a lot of African-American women grow up with good jobs and good families, and if they do end up with a good job, their chance of family is limited, like Maud in the final section, “Maud who went to college/Is a thin brown mouse/She is living all alone/In this old
The poem explains her hardships. Reading poetry is different from reading prose because you really have to dig deeper and study harder. A poem is not always straight forward like many other writings. You have to use context clues and understand imagery, tone, and sense. Summarizing a poem becomes difficult if you do not re-read several times. I learned that figurative language and lifestyle really tells a great story. Language especially helps you understand what is going on between the lines. Overall, family is always there at the end of the day. Sometimes situations get tough, but there is always a light at the end of the
Women of the nineteenth century had very set expectations. There were only two types of women: upper class bourgeoisie and lower class farmer’s wives or daughters. Women were considered physically weaker to men, which meant that they were best suited to the domestic sphere while the men workers and made the money. The mill girls defied all of this, and created their own class of women: wage earning middle class women. These women were not like farmers’ wives that were typically uneducated, nor like the bourgeoisie women that were educated, by mostly in domestic and “womanly” skills. The mill girls went to college if they so desired, most of the time doing that in the stead of getting married and becoming a housewife. The mill girls were a
The readers are apt to feel confused in the contrasting ways the woman in this poem has been depicted. The lady described in the poem leads to contrasting lives during the day and night. She is a normal girl in her Cadillac in the day while in her pink Mustang she is a prostitute driving on highways in the night. In the poem the imagery of body recurs frequently as “moving in the dust” and “every time she is touched”. The reference to woman’s body could possibly be the metaphor for the derogatory ways women’s labor, especially the physical labor is represented. The contrast between day and night possibly highlights the two contrasting ways the women are represented in society.
The poem Sadie and Maud was written by Gwendolyn Brooks and is included in her first volume of poetry known as A Street in Bronzeville. Gwendolyn was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1917, but moved to Chicago at a young age. Her first poem was published when she was thirteen years old, and it was called Eventide. By the time Gwendolyn was seventeen, she was publishing poems for the Chicago Defender, a newspaper for the black population. After attending junior college, Gwendolyn began writing the poems that were included in her first collection, A Street in Bronzeville”, which was published in 1945. These poems focused on portraying the black urban poor. In the 1940s, when these
Themes: One of the main themes of the text is gender roles. According to Boydston, gender spheres were put into place in response to chaotic changes occurring in society (143). Work outside of the home (man 's work) was very seasonal and inconsistent and therefore a man 's "manhood" was always being challenged. Women were placed into their specific roles in order to offset that challenge to manhood, and when a women entered the wage-earning world (and worked for less than a man at that) she was challenging the manhood. Women also faced challenges to their roles as time went on. Household roles changed and women 's work became less valued over time, and
Lucinda lived a very long life of ninety-six years. From what Masters conveyed with his poem, it seemed like Lucinda enjoyed her life and was very satisfied with everything she had accomplished. In the first few lines of the poem she talks about going to different dances and how the frequently switched partners, until one day she met Davis. They were soon married and stayed together for seventy years. She and Davis had twelve children, but eight of them died. How the eight children died when never explained in the poem, but it could relate to the time period in which the poem was placed in. In the early 1900?s it was normal to have many children, but unless a family had the resources needed, some of the children may die. She also did many activities such as spinning, weaving, kept the house up and also nursed the sick, which could relate to the time period this poem is taking place in also. The intent that the author was trying to get across is one that, people could life happy lives in a very simplistic way, such as Lucinda did.
Gwendolyn Brooks was an American poet who was born in Topeka, Kansas but raised in Chicago, Illinois. She was recognized as the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. She grew up in an African-American neighborhood on the Southside of Chicago where there were limited opportunities for African-American women. For example, around six out of ten African-American women were employed in jobs that provided small wages, while less than one percent held professional positions such as teachers in segregated schools. In “Sadie and Maud”, Brooks compares and contrasts two sisters who have made different lifestyle choices and how their decisions have impacted them their lives. Although there were many limitations and expectations for African-American
By taking a step back, a progressive style can be observed in “The Sonnet Ballad”. Ultimately, Brooks is trying to break away from traditional ideas, by using them to show grief. Throughout the poem, the narrator has taken the role of a traditional woman- which ends up tormenting her. Brooks transforms the traditional ideas and forms she uses intensify this torment that most others of this time are also feeling which simply is hurt. By manipulating the form, Brooks is taking a step towards a modern traditions such as an independent, working woman. Brooks wants to relay to all women that all happiness shouldn’t be placed in a person. Being reliant on others to bring happiness is a mistake since immortality doesn’t exist and with time, people change. Happiness needs to come from within oneself. That is the larger implication Brooks makes. It is the reason she won the Pulitzer
She makes the argument that all women in the south, including slaves experienced many forms of oppression because of the patriarchal society of the south during the time, because without the oppression of all women then farmers would lose full authority. “Patriarchy was the bedrock upon which the slave society was founded, and slavery exaggerated the pattern of subjugation that patriarchy had established.”(p. 6) She makes the notion that the plantation wives and female slaves shared similar experiences with unequal treatment. The book even theorizes that the plantation mistress were in more bondage than female slaves were because she had no other person to share her experiences with. Whereas, the slaves all had commonality among them and experienced there hardships together as a family rather than
Many women who were part of the middle classes were often not sent to school and so didn’t usually learn a skill that they could use to make a living. Consequently, as they were women and so were often not left much, if any, inheritance when their parents died, women found that they must. marry in order to have money and to keep their place in society. Charlotte takes advantage of her situation to marry purely for money. and not for love, this is what many women do and what society.
Pulitzer Prize- winning author, Gwendolyn Brooks has gained much attention, but not without comparable controversy and criticism (Appiah 313). The Chicago-based author has built a sturdy reputation in both mainstream and African American literary circles. Nonetheless, her more popular works has won most of the poet laureate's recognition. "No white poet of her quality is so undervalued, so unpardonably unread. She ought to be widely appreciated... as one of our most remarkable woman poets" ("Voices"). Brooks challenged the existing approach to romanticism, the fairy tale nature of the Amer...
The theme of Gwendolyn Brooks's "Sadie and Maud" is that going against the grain of society is perfectly acceptable. Brooks conveys this message by depicting two contrasting sisters: Maud, who follows the rules of society, and Sadie, who does not allow social expectations to dictate her life. The poem explains how these women lead very different lives that reflect the choices they make.
...sed society with religious overtones throughout the poem, as though religion and God are placing pressure on her. The is a very deep poem that can be taken in may ways depending on the readers stature yet one thing is certain; this poem speaks on Woman’s Identity.
On the contrary, Mildred, an African-American woman who worked sewing at home, had a lot more struggles living in that same place. She was in disadvantage because apart from being black, she was a woman, and she was poor. Her status didn’t bring her the respect from others, apart from her family and Richard, that learned to live in such conditions. She loved Richard, and wasn’t discouraged of being with him even when the same few people from the county judged their relationship. Seemingly, the decisions that Mildred and Richard took were always for the best for both of them, no matter how many forces tried to separate
Gwendolyn Brooks once said “I felt that I had to write. Even if I had never been published, I knew that I would go on writing, enjoying it, and experiencing the challenge”. For some, writing may not be enjoyable or easy, but for Brooks writing was her life. Gwendolyn Brooks not only won countless awards, but also influenced the lives of several African Americans.