"Kitchenette Building" from Gwendolyn Brooks' first volume of poetry "A Street in Bronzeville" (1945) is a starkly realistic description of urban poverty. The inmates of the 'kitchenette building' are trapped physically,socially and psychologically.
Gwendolyn Brooks does not elaborate what the "dream" is because,
1. The readers can easily guess what would have obviously been the dreams and aspirations of these marginalised black people caged in within this urban ghetto: civil rights and equality and most definitely a prosperous lifestyle.
2. The dream is just that-only a dream. It is so weak and "giddy" that it is easily overwhelmed and crushed by the mundane things the urban poor worry about daily, like "rent" for instance.
That the tone of Brooks' protest is muted and ironic, is emphasised by her use of the singular "a dream." The residents of the building are so dejected that they don't have dreams about their future but only a dream and even that single dream fails to take shape in their mind because its time to get into the "lukewarm water" in the bathroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment