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126 Pages·2010·1.14 MB·English

Gwendolyn
Brooks
CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
BLOOM’S MAJOR BLOOM’S MAJOR BLOOM’S MAJOR BLOOM’S MAJOR
DRAMATISTS NOVELISTS POETS SHORT STORY
WRITERS
Aeschylus Jane Austen Maya Angelou Jorge Luis Borges
Aristophanes The Brontës Elizabeth Bishop Italo Calvino
Bertolt Brecht Willa Cather William Blake Raymond Carver
Anton Chekhov Stephen Crane Gwendolyn Brooks Anton Chekhov
Henrik Ibsen Charles Dickens Robert Browning Joseph Conrad
Ben Johnson William Faulkner Geoffrey Chaucer Stephen Crane
Christopher F. Scott Fitzgerald Sameul Taylor William Faulkner
Marlowe Nathaniel Hawthorne Coleridge F. Scott Fitzgerald
Arthur Miller Ernest Hemingway Dante Nathaniel Hawthorne
Eugene O’Neill Henry James Emily Dickinson Ernest Hemingway
Shakespeare’s James Joyce John Donne O. Henry
Comedies D. H. Lawrence H.D. ShirleyJackson
Shakespeare’s Toni Morrison T. S. Eliot Henry James
Histories John Steinbeck Robert Frost James Joyce
Shakespeare’s Stendhal Seamus Heaney Franz Kafka
Romances Leo Tolstoy Homer D.H. Lawrence
Shakespeare’s Mark Twain Langston Hughes Jack London
Tragedies Alice Walker John Keats Thomas Mann
George Bernard Edith Wharton John Milton Herman Melville
Shaw Virginia Woolf Sylvia Plath Flannery O’Connor
Neil Simon Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe
Oscar Wilde Poets of World War I Katherine Anne Porter
Tennessee Shakespeare’s Poems J. D. Salinger
Williams & Sonnets John Steinbeck
August Wilson Percy Shelley Mark Twain
Alfred, Lord John Updike
Tennyson Eudora Welty
Walt Whitman
William Carlos Williams
William Wordsworth
William Butler Yeats
Gwendolyn
Brooks
©2003 by Chelsea House Publishers, a subsidiary of
Haights Cross Communications.
Introduction © 2003 by Harold Bloom.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written
permission of the publisher.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
First Printing
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gwendolyn Brooks / Harold Bloom, ed.
p. cm. —(Bloom’s major poets)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7910-6815-3
1. Brooks, Gwendolyn, 1917—Criticism and interpretation. 2.
Women and literature–United States—History—20th century. 3.
African Americans in literature. I. Series.
PS3503.R7244 Z66 2002
811.54'—dc21 2002004480
Chelsea House Publishers
1974 Sproul Road, Suite 400
Broomall, PA 19008-0914
The Chelsea House World Wide Web address is http://www.chelseahouse.com
Contributing Editor: Robb Erskine
Layout by EJB Publishing Services
CONTENTS
User’s Guide 7
About the Editor 8
Editor’s Note 9
Introduction 10
Biography of Gwendolyn Brooks 12
Critical Analysis of “The Mother” 15
Critical Views on “The Mother” 17
Beverly Guy-Sheftall on a “Bronzeville” Mother 17
D. H. Melhem on Emotions in the Poem 18
Toks Pearse on a Mother’s Responsibility 19
Kathryne V. Lindberg on Abortion in the Poem 21
B. J. Bolden on A Mother’s Memory 23
Critical Analysis of “The Bean Eaters” 25
Critical Views on “The Bean Eaters” 28
D. H. Melhem on Aging in The Bean Eaters 28
Maria K. Mootry on the Public Response to The Bean Eaters 29
Beverly Guy-Sheftall on Elderly Women in Brooks’s Poetry 31
Mort Rich on the Common Language in the Work 34
B. J. Bolden on Poverty in “The Bean Eaters” 37
Critical Analysis of “We Real Cool” 40
Critical Views on “We Real Cool” 44
Clenora F. Hudson on Racial Themes 44
Barbara B. Sims on the Subtext of the Poem 47
Patrick M.N. Stone on Voice and Meaning 49
Gary Smith on Reality vs. Romance in the Poem 50
Kathryne V. Lindberg on the “We” in “We Real Cool” 52
James D. Sullivan on the Visual Appeal of the Poem 56
Critical Analysis of “Bronzeville Woman in a Red Hat” 61
Critical Views on “Bronzeville Woman in a Red Hat” 64
Beverly Guy-Sheftall on the Meaning of “Bronzeville Woman” 64
D. H. Melhem on Brooks’s Voice in the Poem 67
Richard Flynn on Children in Brooks’Poetry 68
B. J. Bolden on Economic Deprivation in the Poem 69
Critical Analysis of “Riot” 73
Critical Views on “Riot” 78
William H. Hansell on Violence in the Second Part of “Riot” 78
Norris B. Clark on Brooks’Themes of Love in Her Later Works 86
D. H. Melhem on John Cabot in the Poem 88
Charles L. James on Brooks’Transition from Her Earlier Poetry 91
Critical Analysis of “Queen of the Blues” 94
Critical Views on “Queen of the Blues” 97
Gary Smith on the Harlem Renaissance in the Poem 97
D. H. Melhem on the Queen’s Themes 100
Emma Waters Dawson on Black Women in Brooks’s Poetry 102
George E. Kent on the Realism of the Poem 104
B. J. Bolden on Mame’s Courage 105
Bill V. Mullen on the Strength of Mame in the Poem 107
Works by Gwendolyn Brooks 111
Works about Gwendolyn Brooks 113
Acknowledgements 119
Index of Themes and Ideas 123
USER’S GUIDE
This volume is designed to present biographical, critical, and biblio-
graphical information on the author and the author’s best-known or
most important short stories. Following Harold Bloom’s editor’s
note and introduction is a concise biography of the author that dis-
cusses major life events and important literary accomplishments. A
plot summary of each story follows, tracing significant themes, pat-
terns, and motifs in the work. An annotated list of characters sup-
plies brief information on the main characters in each story. As with
any study guide, it is recommended that the reader read the story
beforehand, and have a copy of the story being discussed available
for quick reference.
A selection of critical extracts, derived from previously published
material, follows each character list. In most cases, these extracts
represent the best analysis available from a number of leading crit-
ics. Because these extracts are derived from previously published
material, they will include the original notations and references
when available. Each extract is cited, and readers are encouraged to
check the original publication as they continue their research. A bib-
liography of the author’s writings, a list of additional books and arti-
cles on the author and their work, and an index of themes and ideas
conclude the volume.
7
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale
University and Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English at
the New York University Graduate School. He is the author of over
20 books, and the editor of more than 30 anthologies of literary crit-
icism.
Professor Bloom’s works include Shelly’s Mythmaking (1959),
The Visionary Company (1961), Blake’s Apocalypse (1963), Yeats
(1970), A Map of Misreading (1975), Kabbalah and Criticism
(1975), Agon: Toward a Theory of Revisionism (1982), The
American Religion (1992), The Western Canon (1994), and Omens
of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection
(1996). The Anxiety of Influence (1973) sets forth Professor Bloom’s
provocative theory of the literary relationships between the great
writers and their predecessors. His most recent books include
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, a 1998 National Book
Award finalist, How to Read and Why(2000), and Stories and Poems
for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages(2001).
Professor Bloom earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1955
and has served on the Yale faculty since then. He is a 1985
MacArthur Foundation Award recipient and served as the Charles
Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University in 1987–88.
In 1999 he was awarded the prestigious American Academy of Arts
and Letters Gold Medal for Criticism. Professor Bloom is the edi-
tor of several other Chelsea House series in literary criticism, includ-
ing BLOOM’S MAJOR SHORT STORY WRITERS, BLOOM’S MAJOR
NOVELISTS, BLOOM’S MAJOR DRAMATISTS, MODERN CRITICAL
INTERPRETATIONS, MODERN CRITICAL VIEWS, and BLOOM’S
BIOCRITIQUES.
8
EDITOR’S NOTE
My Introduction centers upon the controlled pathos of “The
Mother.”
Kathryne V. Lindberg, commenting on “The Mother,” commends
Brooks for “at once humanizing and equivocating over victim and
agent,” while Maria K. Mootry notes the oblique effectiveness of
“The Bean Eaters.”
“We Real Cool” moves Gary Smith to contrast urban reality to
romance in the poem, after which, D. H. Melhem analyzes Brooks’s
voice in “Bronzeville Women in a Red Hat.”
“The Riot” is viewed by Charles L. James as marking a new mode
in Brooks, while “Queen of the Blues” is illuminated by Gary Smith
and George E. Kent, among others.
9