Analysis Of The Poem Kitchenette Building

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Gwendolyn Brooks's poem "kitchenette building" is really impressed me, because I found myself understanding it in a different way each time I read it, sometimes pessimistically and sometimes optimistically. Brooks uses the word "kitchenette" in the title so that the reader can have a clear idea about the size of the building and the conditions of people who live there. Brooks also uses words which have connotation to help us understand the theme and the tone of the poem. The poem is about poor African-Americans who live very hard lives in "kitchenette" buildings with small rooms and who share things and places with others. They have a lot of obligations, but also they do have dreams to dream about. The meaning of the poem is that poor people …show more content…
Also, does this mean that the impact of the tasks is preventing them to dream a dream far away from their harsh reality? Another answer comes in the second stanza when the speaker says that dreams have a lot of enemies to fight which confuse the poor dreamers and weaken their dreams. "Dreams" have to fight some unpleasant things and they affect senses, such as the unpleasant smell of "onion fumes” (4), the unpleasant sight of "yesterday’s garbage” (6), and the unpleasant sound of a loud "aria” (7). This makes us realize that these enemies surrounded the kitchenette building's resident—for example, in the kitchen, in the hall or inside their small rooms. It is like a battle when the dream needs to fight harsh reality to survive. But at the end of the third stanza, the speaker wonders if the dream could survive or not. Brooks tries to let the government to know that poor American-Africans suffer a lot in their lives and even their dreams have to fight a lot of obstacles to …show more content…
Brooks indicates how the kitchenette building's residents are living in hurry. She also indicates that they don't have time to dream unless they are waiting their turn for something. According to Brooks-Motl's response to the poem, she says "after the preceding stanzas, our only ‘hope’ is that we manage to get the tail end of someone else’s hot bath". So, the speaker at the end of the poem doesn't hope for more than the warm water that was left by the previous person, although while he was waiting, he was wondering what would happen if his dreams become true. But after reality broke into his dream land, he is aware that his dreams must be as small as his small

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