Dark and Dingy Scene

"We real cool" by Brooks.  For some reason I can’t really explain, this poem really appeals to me.  Maybe because of the pattern of the words, the way Brooks uses the word "we" to tie the stanzas together in a unique and vaguely disquieting way.  But I think that the way Brooks uses her words to create a vivid mental scene, one that i can see almost as if I’m there is what attracts me so much to this dark little ditty.

In my own mind, I see a bunch of young people gathered around a pool table, just as the poem says.  The tavern is dim, but weak light filters through the grimy front windows.  The men are dressed in stained white shirts, dart pants, newspaper boys' hats.  The women in the flapper dresses of the twenties and are slinking around the men, watching them.  The men watch the women with a dark glint as they take swigs from their glasses and mugs.

The whole scene, to me, is a fake-glitz, dark, angry place, sort of a not-all-that-glitters-is-gold scene.  This poem describes a life, if you can call it that, that is a sad one, without much purpose or direction.  I think this poem sort of is a metaphor for the way African-Americans were feeling about their oppressed lives in 1959.

 Brooks uses her literary abilities to fashion a world where there is no meaning or ambition because no one has ever cleaned off the windows to let the light come shining in.

Sick of Sweet & Sappy Heros?

Alright, I’d like a show of hands please: who out there gets tired of reading happily-ever-after stories?  The hero always is a brave fellow who sets out with the courage of a man who knows that he is defending the honor of king and country.  He is usually insufferably good, with no devious bone in his body.  When confronted with a moral dilemma, there is never any doubt which path our hero will choose. 

But don’t you agree that these unfailing paragons, lovely though they are, get boring?! Well, any of you who did agree, you are in luck. There is another sort of hero that has been portrayed between the pages of many a book: he is the existential hero… the antihero.

The antihero is a character who is engulfed with all the qualities missing from the generic cookie-cutter hero.  He is not normally a brave and courageous soul.  He has no moral compass or conscious, or if he does have one, he will probably choose not to listen to it.  He allows himself to be selfish and greedy and conniving.  His one saving grace is that when his plans backfire or he regrets his choices, he blames no one but himself.

He also is a character of utter absurdity.  Samuel Beckett’s theater production Waiting for Godot is a perfect example of the existential mindset, with seemingly random ideas spouted off at the actors’ whims…truth be told, I loved it! As I read this excerpt, I was nearly rolling on the floor, picturing two completely serious actors discussing if they could hang themselves with a belt and wondering how, if one hung onto the other’s legs, who would hang on to the other’s?

The illogicality that the existentialist portrayed is a wonderful contrast to the sappy romance of  the other movements that came before.  Let me end with this:

            “Well? Shall we go?”

            “Yes, let’s go.”

(They do not move.)