A Song In The Front Yard Analysis

Register to read the introduction… In the fifth line, Brooks declares that she “[wants] to go in the back yard now,” representing how she has now grown up enough and is ready to go out on her own. In the sixth line, she says that she may want to go “down the alley,” illustrating how she has become more rebellious than before and wants to experience even more than she did before. In the first stanza, Brooks only wanted to “peek at the back,” but now she wants to go in the back and go down the alley. The “alley” is used to represent the extremities Brooks will go to in order to change her life. The “alley” is so far away from what she is used to in the front yard, so she wants to go there in order to experience all that she can. In the seventh line, she wants to go “where the charity children play,” suggesting that a primary reason for her adventure in the backyard is so she can have some fun. Brooks wants to play with the “charity children” because she has not encountered anyone outside of her “front yard” environment. She wants to play with the “charity children” because she sees that people outside of her world can have fun as well. In the eighth line, Brooks says, “I want to have a good time today,” highlighting her desire to escape her current environment. The repetition of “I want” in the fifth and eighth lines suggest that Brooks knows what she wants in life and nothing is going to stop her from escaping the “front …show more content…
In the ninth and tenth lines, the author writes, “they do some wonderful things / they have some wonderful fun,” suggesting that Brooks only wants to go to the “backyard” in order to have more fun in her life. The repetition of “wonderful” is used to emphasize her opinion that the backyard is much better than the front yard. In the eleventh line, Brooks’ says, “My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine,” representing her rebellious attitude towards the front yard and her mother. In the twelfth line, the back yard is described as being the ideal place for Brooks because “they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine,” emphasizing the idea that people only want what they cannot have. Brooks only knows the ways of the front yard, so everything about life in the back yard looks appealing to her. In the thirteenth through fifteenth lines, Brooks writes, “my mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae / Will grow up to be a bad woman / That George’ll be taken to jail soon or late,” highlighting Brooks’ mother’s attempt to make her stay in the front yard. Her mother knows that the backyard is full of troubled people and bad behavior, so she does not want her own daughter getting wrapped up in that. Brooks, however, is too naïve to realize that and only wants what is not offered in the front yard. In line sixteen, Brooks’ says that George is in jail, “on account of last winter he sold our back gate,” suggesting that Brooks, like George, wants to experience the backyard life, but is ignoring the possible repercussions. George “sold the back gate,” suggesting that he was trying the merge both the front and backyard lives. He wanted to have a part of both worlds, but he only ended up getting put in