21 pages • 42 minutes read
Gwendolyn BrooksThe Lovers of the Poor
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Food
Food is an important motif in “The Lovers of the Poor.” It indicates culture and social status. Brooks repeats “chitterling(s)” (Lines 36 and 78)—cooked animal intestines. During slavery in America, Black people would only be given the least desirable cuts of meat, and chitterlings—also called chitlins—became part of soul food cuisine. Another food item indicative of the low social status is the “potato” (Line 60). Potato recipes include poor man’s potatoes and peasant potatoes, to give a sense of the symbolic associations that potatoes have with being poor.
In contrast to this, the rich white women eat expensive foods. They are described as “full” (Line 14) and “Turtle soup” (Line 68)—a pricey delicacy—is listed as a dish they enjoy. Food-related adjectives abound in the list of their extravagant possessions. The speaker’s catalog includes the words “rubbed glaze” (Line 43) and “tasteful” (Line 45), which can be applied to food or furnishings just as the term “rich” can be applied to both. This speaks to the ladies’ lavish lifestyles.
Oldness
The speaker of “The Lovers of the Poor” presents the symbol of oldness as both negative and positive. For the poor, oldness is negative, symbolizing desiccation and dirt. Their homes are made of old materials that are in poor repair, and are filled with “old smoke” (Line 35). The ladies of the Betterment League abstractly believe that their duty is to help “moisten with milky chill” (Line 19) these dry, smokey rooms.
For the rich, oldness is positive. They have “homekind Oldness” (Line 41) that includes “quiet drama” (Line 43). This kind of oldness is associated with legacy and lineage. While slavery disconnected Black people from their families and ancestors, wealthy white families can trace their family lines back for many generations.
Contradiction
The motif of contradiction underlies both the poem’s individual lines, and the overall narrative. The first example of paradoxical contradiction, “mercy and murder” (Line 4) is used to describe the motives of the Ladies’ Betterment League, before which the scene is entirely positive. This use of paradox is itself paradoxical, complicating the poem with unresolvable and ambiguous double-meanings. In this way, Brooks describes the paradoxical relationship between philanthropic rich and poor: The rich, who ostensibly want to help the worst sufferers of society, do not truly want their money to go to the worst of sufferers of society.
The historical contradictions of the mass movements of people also support this motif. The Great Migration of Black Americans fleeing the post-Reconstruction South to northern urban centers was followed by White Flight: the mass exodus of upper- and middle-class white people to the suburbs and exurbs. The desire for a distant and invisible poorer class exists alongside a desire to see oneself as materially helping and uplifting the poor.
Related Titles
By Gwendolyn Brooks
