Blog 5: We Real Cool

“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks has a lot more to it than one might realize. There are themes within this poem of uncertainty, fear, and realization. The unique poem structure is where we find the uncertainty. The hanging we’s at the end of each line suggest a slight hesitation before each statement. It seems to suggest that the pool players are being falsely confident because they know deep down that they’re making poor choices. That is where we see the fear. They are afraid of their futures and the people they have fallen in with. On some level they understand that because they are currently making the easy choices to conform and to never challenge themselves, they are ultimately hurting their futures and shortening their lives. That is the realization of the poem.

I think everyone knows people who are lazily throwing their lives away. They seem to be unmotivated and stagnate. This is driven by their need to conform to their friends. Conformity can be very destructive to people. It seems that the “bad kids” in modern times are just misunderstood individuals who have found acceptance among people who do not encourage them to be successful, but rather to cut class, drink alcohol, and generally not think about the consequences of their actions. This can affect our lives as sometimes these people are our siblings or old friends who we care about. These perspectives make this poem cut much deeper.

I think the most important line in this poem is “We die soon” (Brooks, 1312). This shows the real meaning and purpose of this poem. It is the underbelly of the attitude of the pool players. They know they’re living dangerous lives, but they can’t be afraid of that, or at least they can’t say they’re afraid of it. They just have to act like they’re above society and above being told what to do. Because of this, they will likely die soon. Another significant quote is, “We left school” (Brooks, 1312). A lack of education can certainly lead to delinquency. Education is one of the most important pillars of society. Without an educated public, society will take extremely long to progress. Whether these pool players skipped class for a day or dropped out of school altogether, they are hurting their ability to understand the world they live in and taking opportunities away from themselves.

This poem does not have extremely positive implications about these pool players. It seems to imply that they are throwing their lives away and they’re proud of themselves for it. That can be hard to read the first time through. However, when you think about it, it may not be entirely bleak. If they are the ones saying that they know they will die soon then there is some hope that they will change. It is hard to move away from an identity such as the one these pool players have created for themselves, but it is possible that they will be able to realize what they are doing to themselves and choose a better life, especially because they hesitate after the we’s, which shows that they are not confident in their current circumstances.

Literary Context Blog: Regionalism

Regionalism plays a significant role in “A Streetcar Named Desire”. This play shows the 20th century south, specifically New Orleans, in an honest way. It shows us issues such as gender inequality and a lack class mobility. This is regionalism because it shows us the good and the bad of New Orleans. Regionalism focuses on everything that creates a place. Things like dialects, customs, and environment. Stories that involve regionalism tend to have similarities. Some of these similarities can be having an unmarried female main character, like Blanche, or having a theme of sentimentality. As its written in “Regionalism in English Fiction Between the Wars”, “What these fictions might share[...] is their sense of regions as points of difference that are linked, if not continuous, with the space of the nation-state and with international and transnational movements” (Hart, 93).

In the first scene of the show when Blanche arrives and Stella and Stanley’s house, we see her reactions to her surroundings. She is horrified that Stella is living in such terrible conditions, or at least terrible by her standards. She seems to feel above it all. When you consider regionalism within this passage, it can really deepen your interpretation of it. This really shows the class divide. The rich live on grand plantations and the poor live in small, shared apartments. Even though Blanche is now completely broke, she still see herself as above the people around her. This shows a reality of life in New Orleans at this time, being that there was a class divide.

What I found the most interesting while doing this research was that 19th century southern regionalism helped to mend tensions after the civil war. Kathryn McKee wrote, “Writers of the postbellum era record the aftermath of the century-splitting conflict in memoirs and Lost Cause laments before rallying around a continued sense of local distinctiveness expressed in regional literature, populated by still rebellious, careworn Southerners trying to find their way into the twentieth century” (McKee, 11). I think this really shows how writing was able to help people understand the world they were living in. I really think that literature is powerful and this is a great example of just how powerful it can be.

Sources

McKee, Kathryn, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American South.

1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Cambridge Companions

Online.  Web. 02 April 2015.

Matthew Hart. (2009). Regionalism in English fiction between the wars. In: Robert L. Caserio

(ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Twentieth-Century English Novel. pp. 89-101.

[Online]. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. Available from: Cambridge Companions Online [Accessed 06 April 2015].

Blog 4: A Streetcar Named Desire

“A Streetcar Named Desire” has a theme throughout the show of manipulation and control. Two of the characters in particular, Blanche and Stanley, both seem to be in a place in their lives where they do not have as much power as they would like to. These internal conflicts create many problems through the show. Blanche is constantly trying to manipulate people into doing what she wants or into paying attention to her. This drove Mitch to her and then partially led to the end of their relationship and to her being institutionalized. Stanley, being a lower class worker who wishes he was in a better situation yet cannot seem to move himself up in the world, tries to compensate for his lack of control by forcefully controlling the limited parts of his life that he has power over.

America has never been perfect. I’ve always known that. However, this view into life in New Orleans in the 20th century was a bit harsher than I expected. The gender inequality was difficult to see, especially seeing a character get away with raping someone. Blanche’s false front about being civilized and wearing very lavish clothing reminded me of the characters in “The Great Gatsby” who were well dressed and socialized but they were empty people. Blanche’s sadness and lack of true identity seemed to be a big factor in why she tries to manipulate people and searches for the approval of men. Without the societal pressure on women to be attractive in order to be valuable she may have been a more well rounded person.

There are many instances within the play that we see Blanche and Stanley try control and manipulate people. We see Blanche being manipulative when she says, “I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be true. And if that’s sinful, then let me be damned for it” (Williams, 1165). She says this to Mitch when he’s confronting her about her past. It’s manipulative because she’s telling him that her actions and reasonable and he is the one that’s incorrect to believe she has done something wrong. We also see Stanley being controlling of Stella when he says, “You hens cut that conversation in there”, and “Well, you can hear me and I said hush up” (Williams, 1134). He is very demanding of his wife and does not seem to respect her much at all. He only ever tries to be kind to her when she runs out on him and he wants to get her back.

The term “control freak” is well ingrained into our society. It is not uncommon to meet someone who has to have every inch of their house spotless or a parent who strictly oversees every aspect of their children’s life. Stanley and Blanche may have existed fictionally several decades ago, but their types still exist today. Obviously domestic violence and sexual assault are very real problems in our society today. There seems to be an imbalance of power in some relationships. In poorer areas, domestic violence reports skyrocket after a popular team loses and right before people get a payday, when the previous paycheck is running out. This shows people who cannot control certain aspects of their lives asserting themselves wherever they can. This is an unfortunate reality. Stories like “A Streetcar Named Desire” allows people to see inside these lives and hopefully help to prevent these sort of events from happening to them or the people they love.