19 pages • 38 minutes read
Gwendolyn BrooksA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The word “war” never comes up in Brooks's sonnet, yet war remains the central theme as “my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell” is a part of a series of poems about war. Sticking to this specific sonnet, the absence of the word “war” suggests that war is unspeakable or too horrifying to put into words. Of course, before heading off to war, the speaker is articulate and can use words to order the things in his life, like bread and honey. After the soldier tells the things, “Be firm till I return from hell” (Line 4), the speaker pivots to war, and the faculty for precise language disappears.
Hell stands in for war because hell describes a place that defies human understanding. It's a place no living human can bear witness to because it belongs to the mysterious realm of the afterlife. Brooks mixes hell and war to bolster the unfathomable horror of such an experience. It's as if the soldier is heading off into a demonic, nonhuman world. The only word spoken here is “Wait” (Line 7)—a term that highlights the interminable torment of hell. The “puny light” (Line 8) and “devil days” (Line 9) further the dark, satanic picture of war.
By Gwendolyn Brooks
A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon
Gwendolyn Brooks
A Sunset of the City
Gwendolyn Brooks
Boy Breaking Glass
Gwendolyn Brooks
Cynthia in the Snow
Gwendolyn Brooks
Maud Martha
Gwendolyn Brooks, Elin Hilderbrand
Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III)
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Ballad of Rudolph Reed
Gwendolyn Brooks
The birth in a narrow room
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Blackstone Rangers
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Crazy Woman
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Lovers of the Poor
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Mother
Gwendolyn Brooks
the rites for Cousin Vit
Gwendolyn Brooks
To Be in Love
Gwendolyn Brooks
To The Diaspora
Gwendolyn Brooks
Ulysses
Gwendolyn Brooks
We Real Cool
Gwendolyn Brooks