Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” explores the lives of rebellious teenage kids who are only defined by their action. Their actions are due only because of the teenage kids being together and wanting to prove their rebellion to each other. The underlying theme throughout this poem is the identity of these teenagers together and that their individual identities are slowly being stripped because of themselves; which puts them on a different ends of society’s expectations of the teenagers vs what they want to do with their young lives. Brooks expresses continuously throughout her poem that this group of kids are a team and they cannot do anything without each other. Every line ends with “We” and is repeated throughout the poem eight times, which
In her poem “The School Children”, Louise Gluck uses imagery by applying an extended metaphor to show how going to school is similar to going to battle and by describing the mothers’ actions through the use of vivid verbs to portray the disconnection between children and their guardians, despite the sacrifices that mothers make.
Gwendolyn Brooks and Sonia Sanchez, in their poems “We Real Cool” and “Summer Words of a Sistuh Addict”, are both alike in their idea of dealing with troubled youth. Brooks discusses in her poem “We Real Cool” rebellious pool-playing youth that “sing sin” (Line 5) and “thin gin.” (Line 6) The whole poem centers around disturbed youth. The narrator in Sonia Sanchez’s poem “Summer Words of a Sistuh Addict”, is also a disturbed young woman who is addicted to heroin, and seems to live a rather rebellious lifestyle. In addition, both of these poems use tone via word choice, sentence structure, and meter in order to vividly describe the scenarios in their poems, and to impact their reader. However, both poets use the literary elements mentioned above differently in their poems.
The world of young adults is a complicated landscape, with cliques and a desire to fit in. This push for conformity stretches not only through behavior, but more noticeably through the apparel worn by youths. At the beginning of the story, the narrator states that she and her friends are in “trouble,” but they “do not know what [they did], and [they are] sure [they] did not mean to do it” (103). This fear of the unknown continues throughout the entirety of the story, and readers can infer that the crime the girls have committed was simply dressing out of the norm for their age. The narrator also mentions that she is “white-skinned, ebony-haired, red-lipped, and ethereal,” far different than the expectation for her being “suntanned, golden-haired, peach-lipped, and earthbound” like her mother had been (103). As time repeats itself, so too do the fashion trends popular among the masses, and the look that the narrator’s mother portrayed was the same as the look her daughter is expected to adhere to. This is not the case, though, and because of her and her band’s choices in clothes, the narrator feels ostracized by not only her peers but her father as well, who “looks at [them] without moving his mouth or turning his head” as they leave the house (104). This reaction, or lack thereof, indicates that the father disapproves of the choices his daughter has made about how she dresses, but feels as though it is not his place to criticize her. The ending line does an excellent job at summarizing the angst felt by most teens as the narrator and her band feel as though “[they] are right to turn [themselves] in” to the pressures exerted by their peers to comply to what is expected of them (104). Just as women’s individuality is torn down by the pressures
Here, Hayes uses words like “We”, “I” and “theirs” in the poem rather than the definitive names. The word choice displays that Hayes is talking about the group. As he describes in a poem,
Pete is a boy who lives within his own shadow. He wants to get his sister and himself out of the orphanage, a deadly place full of rascal and thieves, where survival is resolved by skills and bareknuckle bravery. Captain Hook hunts for children because he believes that the children can cure the disease. The Marauders and Captain Hook spy the streets and snatch kids, only to use them for experimentation. Gwen Darling and her siblings survived from the disease. They spend their days and nights hiding from the Marauders. However, Gwen’s sister, Joanna, was kidnapped by the
Before reading this poem there are many things that have to be taken into consideration such as Young’s background, education, ideology and phraseology. Kevin Young starts off the poem
Gwen Harwood is a well renowned poet for her poems written during the 1950’s-90’s as she explores the realm of universal human concerns which are the source of her poetic inspiration, these include; love, friendship and memory. Today these concerns are still relevant in our society and are what connects us to each other and immortalises our sprit. Throughout many of Harwood poems she exposes her life in writing to create an intimate relationship with the paper. These documents create a personal account of the struggles and the love a woman feels in moments in changing times. This becomes evident in Harwood’s interpretation of marriage, motherhood and love. She uses symbolism and tone to hint to the undelaying meaning of the poems and the importance of them to her.
This film contains some classic examples of the kinds of real life issues adolescents deal with. Issues such as popularity, peer relationships, family/sibling relationships, sex, and struggles with identity are all addressed in this ninety-minute film.
At this point of the story it is reflective of a teenager. A teenager is at a time in life where boundaries and knowledge is merely a challenging thing to test and in some instances hurdled. Where even though you may realize the responsibilities and resources you have, there is still a longing for the more sunny feelings of youth.
These days, as both characters ironically prove, it is difficult trying to be different when being different is a category in itself. Dave and Julia, the two protagonists of this book, are both the cool, “hipster” type kids that would burn themselves drinking their coffee because they have to do it before it is cool. Both of them think high school is the biggest cliché imaginable, which – when you think about it- it really is. How many of us fantasized over being prom king or queen? Having someone ask you out to a dance in the most romantic, over used fashion possible? Wanted to run for class president or some other office? These are the sort of things that Dave and Julia vow never to do during their four years of high school, until one day everything changes. As the summary explains, Dave and Julia start a pact (which they write down and title the "Nevers List") right before high school, swearing off participating in any of the "cliché" high school experiences that were just bound to arise. The list goes as
"We Real Cool" is a short, yet powerful poem by Gwendolyn Brooks that sends a life learning message to its reader. The message Brooks is trying to send is that dropping out of school and roaming the streets is in fact not "cool" but in actuality a dead end street.
"The sluggard’s craving will be the death of him, because his hands refuse to work" (Proverbs 21:25). The Bible makes a very clear statement in this passage as to how being lazy can be the cause of one’s death. "We Real Cool" is about seven African-American high school dropouts who want everybody else to think that they are cool. These teenagers explain how they stay out late playing pool, fighting, sinning and drinking. Though they think they have everybody else fooled, they know themselves that the destructive behavior they are taking part in will lead to their death. In "We Real Cool," Gwendolyn Brooks uses denotation and sound devices to suggest that although some African-Americans may often think of themselves as being cool for dropping out of school, they know in truth that dropping out will give them time to engage in sinful activities which will result in a broken, short life.
The author uses imagery, contrasting diction, tones, and symbols in the poem to show two very different sides of the parent-child relationship. The poem’s theme is that even though parents and teenagers may have their disagreements, there is still an underlying love that binds the family together and helps them bridge their gap that is between them.
Before Miles went to his new school his father said, “No drugs. No drinking. No cigarettes.” (Green 10 pdf) Miles’ father warned him very heavily about not doing drugs, however, he did drugs in high school before. When Miles goes to high school, he gets lost in the world of peer pressure and he end up doing drugs, drinking alcohol and smoking. In the real world, many high school students tend to fall into the traps of peer pressure and they end up drinking and doing drugs illegally. This story captures the real life perspective of high school with peer pressure, stress and troubles, instead of the fake, “all smiles” perspective of high school that some movies, such as High School Musical, portrays. Additionally, the main character, Alaska, relates to the world because she is a girl that lives a hard life and is depressed on the inside, yet she still manages to have a smile on her face. Many people in the world are going through very hard times, however, they still manage to be happy or they try to give the appearance that they’re happy. Personally, I can relate to Alaska Young’s situation, after losing my grandma and uncle to illness a couple of months ago, I am faced with tremendous amounts of depression and deep sadness. However, on the outside, I tend to have a smile on my face and I don’t show others how I truly feel deep down on the inside. Alaska does this for a while and she slowly
The working class can work to create the ‘bread’ but at the end of the day they have no right to it, it goes to the upper classes. By including the reader within the poem using ‘We’ there is more of a unity and solidarity within the text. Its like the reader is part of the march. The poem is written in a song structure so it is easily sung or chanted within a march or a meeting of the