17 pages 34 minutes read

Gwendolyn Brooks

The birth in a narrow room

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1949

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Poem Analysis

Analysis: “the birth in a narrow room”

The poem is less about race or gender and more about the fragile gift of childhood. Except for the poem’s extratextual frame—we know that this poem was the first in a cycle of 11 semi-autobiographical poems that drew from Brooks’s own experiences as a sensitive, introspective Black child coming of age in the Chicago’s working class Bronzeville neighborhoods in the years after World War II, when America was still very much a segregated nation—little in the poem suggests that we are dealing with anything but a tender, imaginative girl.

Her family is impoverished—the house is small (“pinchy” [Line 8]), cluttered with inexpensive objects, lacks indoor plumbing (no indoor toilet, no indoor running water), and has a tiny bug-thick yard scattered with empty cans and jars. This poem takes place before the child understands the dimensions of race. For her, the world is not yet black and white. The tension in the poem is not about race or gender. That slow-motion epiphany will come all too soon. The tension in the poem centers on the world as it is and the world that can be brought to life by the bold energy of the imagination. The blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text

Related Titles

By Gwendolyn Brooks

SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
Gwendolyn Brooks
Guide cover image