Essay on Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks

Writing with uncommon strength, Gwendolyn Brooks creates haunting images

of black America, and their struggle in escaping the scathing hatred of many

white Americans. Her stories, such as in the "Ballad of Rudolph Reed", portray

courage and perseverance. In those like "The Boy Died in My Alley" Brooks

portrays both the weakness of black America and the unfortunate lack of care

spawned from oppression. In "The Ballad of Chocolate Mabbie" Brooks unveils

another aspect of her skill by entering the domestic arena with the lingering

limitations imposed by prejudice. These aspects, such as strength and finesse,

are among Brooks great attributes. Worthy of exploration, Brooks powerful and

haunting techniques can be separated and explored in the above mentioned poems.

Each work contains a specific tactic, which effectively promotes her ideas. It

is for that reason, tactics mixed with ideas, which have placed Brooks among the

finest poets.

Perhaps because of Brooks' use of a stiff format, "The Ballad of Rudolph

Reed" may be her strongest work. Imbuing the poem with incredible lines and

description, Brooks transforms Rudolph Reed, who is the character the poem is

built around, into a storybook hero, or a tragic character whose only flaw was

the love he held for his family. Brooks creates a strong, solid character who

is more than another fictional martyr, but a human being. The Finesse she

imbued in this work from the first stylized Peiffer 2 stanza: "Rudolph Reed was

oaken. His wife was oaken too. And his two girls and his good little man

Oakened as they grew." (1081, 1-4) Here brooks' symbolic use of the word

oakened, coupled with the use of a rhyme scheme of the second and last sentence

of every stanza causes the reader to more deeply feel what the character and his

family are going through. Using the idea of a dream home, Brooks stabbed to the

heart of the American dream and where those of African descent fit into it.

Every person, man or woman, has at one time or another dreamt of living in a

beautiful home:

"I am not hungry for berries. I am not hungry for bread.

But hungry hungry for a house Where at night a man in bed "May never

here the plaster stir as if in pain. May never here the roaches

Falling like fat rain. "Where never wife and children need Go blinking

through the gloom. Where every room of many rooms Will be full of

room. "Oh my house shall have its east or west Or north or south behind

it. All I know is I shall know it, And fight for it when I find it.