Postwar Emerging Issues

After the war many people questioned things such as race and feminist issues. These issues were expressed through a variety of different authors and poets. Gwendolyn Brooks and Flannery O’Conner are two people that expressed how they felt about these issues in their writing. Brooks in her work “The Bean Eaters” and then O’Conner in “Good Country People”. Both writers even though they had different issues expressed the way they felt in similar writing styles by having the main character in the story be a victim of the issue.

In the poem “The Bean Eaters” Brooks starts by discussing what the narrator of the story eats making it sound very simple and almost blain, “They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair./Dinner is a casual affair./” (Brooks, 1960, p. 1856). In these two lines the reader also gets a since that this poem is describing someone of color because of the phrase, “this old yellow pair.” Then the poem continues to describe their simple life style by saying, “Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,/ Tin flateware.”(Brooks, 1960, p. 1856).

In the next stanza Brooks continues by describing the couple themselves and how they live. This part gives the reader a better feel for the couple and how they are victims of racism. She does this by saying, “Two who have lived their day,/ But keep on putting on their clothes/ And putting things away.”(Brooks, 1960, p. 1856). This part makes it seem as though the couple works hard but does not get their fair share of pay. It also makes the reader believe that the couple understands that they will never get their fair share because that is the way life was at the time.

In the last stanza the reader gets the idea that the couple are slaves because of the line, “As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that/ is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,/” (Brooks, 1960, p. 1856). This stanza makes the reader feel sad for the older couple in their small room surrounded by their few belongings. This is where Brooks accomplishes her goal by showing that racism is an important issue during the time period. She does this by forcing the reader to see how the “other side” lives. Thus making the reader feel remorse for how they are treated in the time period.

In the story “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Conner she discusses feminist issues. She starts with the protagonist’s mother narrating the story. She starts by describing a couple that she hired to do work for her around her property. This part of the story seems to have to significance until she starts to describe her daughter and how she is not the typical girl. This is because the couple that she hires has two daughters that are the typical girls of the time period. The reader understands this when O’Conner says, “Mrs. Hopewell liked to tell people that Glynese and Carramae were two of the finest girls she knew and that Mrs. Freeman was a lady and that she was never ashamed to take her anywhere or introduce her to anybody they might meet.”(O’Conner, 1955, p. 1991).

When O’Conner switches to Hulga, the daughter’s point of view the reader gets the impression that her and her mother do not get along very well. This is because she portrays the girl as being annoyed with her mother right away saying, “The girl was used to this kind of dialogue for breakfast and more of it for dinner; sometimes they had it for supper too.”(O’Conner, 1955, p. 1992).

Then as O’Conner continues with the story she switches back to the mother’s point of view. This is where the reader truly understands that the mother does not approve of her daughter and how she is. “She thought of her still as a child because it tore her heart to think instead of the poor tout girl in her thirties who had never danced a step or had any normal good times.”(O’Conner, 1955, p. 1992).

The reader does not truly understand the purpose of the mother and daughter not getting along until she says, “The girl had taken the Ph.D in philosophy and this left Mrs. Hopewell at a complete loss…All day Joy sat on her neck in a deep chair, reading. Sometimes she went for walks but she didn’t like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men. She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity.” (O’Conner, 1955, p. 1994). 

In this part it is clear that Mrs. Hopewell compares her daughter to the rest of the “normal” girls. Not only does she have a wooden leg but she does not believe in God and she is a philosopher instead of a more normal person. Throughout the story O’Conner makes it clear that these things are not expectable by her mother but she deals with them anyways.

In the end of the story Hulga meets up with a “Bible sales man” that seems like a nice young man by her mother’s perspective. She trusts him and starts to become intimate with him. Then he tricks her into taking off her artificial leg and steels it leaving her in an old barn unable to leave the reader sees another aspect of the feminine issue during the time period. It shows that this girl that is an individual trusts her mother’s judgment of a man for once and then he is takes advantage of because of her. Making the reader see not only is it not fair for women to not have all their rights; but also when following the normal social rules women can get hurt.

In the two pieces “The Bean Eaters” and “Good Country People” by Brooks and O’Conner readers get a better understanding of social issues of the time period. Because these authors expressed their opinions on these issue in such a way people understood and agreed that the issues needed to be fixed. They in large part expressed how many people of the time period felt and were successful in their goal to change how people viewed the issues and responded to them.

References

Brooks, G. (1960). The Bean Eaters. In G. Perkins, B. Perkins, J. Phelan, & E. Renker (Eds.), The American Tradition in Literature (12th ed., p. 1859). New York: McGraw Hill.

O’Conner, F. (1955). Good Country People. In G. Perkins, B. Perkins, J. Phelan, & E. Renker (Eds.), The American Tradition in Literature (12th ed., pp. 1990-2003). New York: McGraw Hill.