Beginning of Essay
Marking Time Versus Enduring in Gwendolyn Brook's "The Bean Eaters" Gwendolyn Brook's poem "The Beann Eater's runs only eleven lines. It is written in plain language about very plain people. Yet its meaning is ambigous. One critic, George E. Kent, says the old ....

Middle of Essay
.... saintliness. They are unexceptionl, whatever message they have for readers. The isolated routine of the couple's life is something Brooks draws attention to with a separate stanza: Two who are Mostly Good. Two who have lived their day, But keep on putting on their clothes And putting things away. (5-8) Brooks emphasizes how isolated the couple is by repeating "Two who." Then she emphasizes how routine their life is by reating"putting." A pessimistic reading of this poem seems justified. The critic Harry B. Shaw reads the lines just quoted as perhaps desparing: "they are putting things awau as if winding down an operation and readyi ....