The Bean Eaters By Gwendolyn Brooks

In “The Bean Eaters”, with its clear theme of poverty using terms like “plain” and “casual”, a lot of symbolism is used. When I first heard about the poem when I was writing my autobiography and reading about “myself” I my mind automatically brought me to visions of my childhood growing up near a rough neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey. The living conditions in which those people lived resemble the conditions that Gwendolyn Brooks is talking about in the poem. And as she talks about these people's’ conditions the tone she uses has a lot of sympathy. As well as a subtle use of envy honoring these people for living their life, strained by a lack of money, without really complaining. She states in the poem how they are good people which