Apr 23 2007
Response on “Sadie and Maud”
Belonging to Genetic school Lucien Goldmann , Kansas , chicago . Fisk University , America .
Structuralism
of
I cannot separate the work from the background of the poet and the society when
a certain work was produced. Brooks was born in 1917 in
and grew up in
She herself divided her writing career into two phases, “pre-1967” and
“post-1967”. In 1967 when she attended the Second Black Writers’ Conference at
Brooks met a number of young black poets who persuaded her that “black poets
should write as blacks, about blacks, and address themselves to blacks.” It
means, after that conference, Brooks’ awareness of her being African American
poet made her dedicate more time and work for Black society in
Gilbert and Gubar stated
that although Brooks did not claim herself as a feminist, believing that racial
issues must take priority over gender questions, she has always written with
extraordinary sympathy about the dilemmas of female characters. This can be
clearly seen in the poem I posted above “Sadie and Maud”.
Maud
went to college.
Sadie
stayed at home.
The first two lines in stanza one illustrated two sisters
who choose different kind of life, Maud goes to college, to study for a
betterment in her own future life while Sadie her sister chooses to stay at
home. Living in an era where education is very important for someone’s success
in life, one can directly conclude that Maud will have a better future than her
sister Sadie.
However, if one jumps
into the last stanza
Maud,
who went to college,
Is
a thin brown mouse.
She
is living all alone
In
this old house.
He/she will be surprised
because things do not turn like what he/she expects. Maud is even lonely, all
alone at home, feeling desperate about her life.
What happens in the process of those two sisters’ lives?
Sadie
scraped life
With
a fine-tooth comb
She
didn’t leave a tangle in.
Her
comb found every strand.
The lines three and four
of stanza one illustrates that life is not easy for Sadie, for she does not go
to college, she has to struggle to survive. “with a fine-tooth comb” can
be interpreted as she chooses to use her physical beauty to survive. The first
and second lines of stanza two depicts the continuation of the previous lines.
Her struggle indeed makes her survive, she can handle every problem coming to
her, with her own way of life that she chooses (by not going to college).
Sadie
was one of the livingest chits
In
all the land.
Lines three and four of stanza two illustrates that Sadie
is the happiest girl in her community despite the fact that she has to undergo
many severe problems in her struggle. Her struggle to survive by choosing “the
best” life that suits her personality does make her happy.
Sadie
bore two babies
Under
her maiden name.
Maud
and Ma and Papa
Nearly
died of shame.
Stanza three describes America
one episode in Sadie’s life as “one of the livingest chits in all the land”.
She has two babies outside the wedlock. Therefore, she makes her sister, Maud,
and her parents very ashamed. Maud and her two parents obviously follow the
consensus of “good girl” as required by The Cult of True Womanhood spread since
the nineteenth century
that a girl must keep her virginity before getting married. Therefore what
Sadie has done really makes them almost die because of feeling humiliated by
society.
Does Sadie ever regret
of her own choice—not to go to college, to use her physical beauty to survive,
to have babies outside the wedlock? The following four lines in stanza four
shows that.
When
Sadie said her last so-long
Her
girls struck out from home.
(Sadie
had left as heritage
Her
fine-tooth comb.)
Before Sadie dies, she “teaches” her two daughters to
follow her step in their life, “Be yourself. Do what you think will make you
happy. And be responsible with your own choice. Don’t just follow the consensus
of “good norm” of society if you don’t feel happy with that.”
Since 1960s after the America ,
abolishment of Jim Crow Law in
many African American people want to forget their “heritage” as Black people
and start to follow the habit of the white (read è the European American). Many feel ashamed
to do the “habit” of their parents or grandparents or older generations.
Brooks depicts Maud who
follows the bulk of white women who go to college in that era, without
realizing what it is for, without trying to like doing it, only as an
“obligation” to be considered as “the educated” person. Doing something because
it is an obligation without knowing the significance why doing it, without
enjoying it will just make Maud—or anybody else—unhappy.
PT56 09.05 220407
