“The Bean Eaters,” Gwendolyn Brooks

The Bean Eaters

GWENDOLYN BROOKS

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.

Dinner is a casual affair.

Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,

Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.

5

Two who have lived their day,

But keep on putting on their clothes

And putting things away.

And remembering . . .

Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,

10

As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that

is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,

tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

Both “The Bean Eaters” and the paragraph you wrote in the Writing Quick Start paint a picture of an elderly couple. Through carefully selected details, the poem describes the couple’s daily activities, memories of the past, and current economic situation (“They eat beans mostly,” “Plain chipware,” and “rented back room” reveal that the couple is poor). The poem also suggests that routine is important to the couple (“But keep on putting on their clothes / And putting things away”) and that their memories of the past are both good (“twinklings”) and bad (“twinges”).

“The Bean Eaters” suggests an answer to a question many students ask: “Why should I read or write about literature?” This poem, like all other literature, is about the experiences people share. Literature often deals with large issues: What is worthwhile? What is moral? What is beautiful? When you read and write about literature, you gain insights into many aspects of human experience and thereby enrich your own life.

The first half of this chapter offers a general approach to reading and understanding literature. The second half focuses on the characteristics of literary analysis and provides a Guided Writing Assignment. Although literature can take many forms — including poetry, short stories, biography, autobiography, drama, essays, and novels — this chapter concentrates on two literary genres: short stories and poetry.

LITERATURE IN COLLEGE AND THE WORKPLACE

  • Your art history professor asks you to read Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (a novel set during the Spanish Civil War) and to write a paper discussing its meaning in conjunction with Picasso’s Guernica, a painting that vividly portrays a scene from that war.
  • In a film class, you watch Romeo and Juliet, directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Your instructor asks you to read excerpts from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and write a paper evaluating how successfully the film portrays Juliet.
  • You work for a children’s book store. Your supervisor has asked you to read several children’s books that she is considering featuring during story hour and to write an evaluation of each.