The Bean Eaters

When you think about bean eaters, you might think of vegans or the story of Jack and the Beanstock. However, in the poem "The Bean Eaters" (1960), eating beans is not an ethical choice or a fairytale but a necessity due to poverty. Through this short poem, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, Gwendolyn Brooks (1917‐2000), paints a picture of an old couple having dinner in a tiny apartment to explore themes of aging, memory, racial discrimination, and poverty.

"The Bean Eaters": Background Information

"The Bean Eaters" (1960) is a poem by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, Gwendolyn Brooks. The poem is from Brooks's 1960 poetry book of the same title. This poetry book focuses on the real lives and experiences of people living in the poet's hometown of Bronzeville, Chicago. Gwendolyn Brooks's poetry explores themes of injustice, poverty, and hardships among Black people in urban America.

"The Bean Eaters" features an old couple who live in a small, back-room apartment. During Gwendolyn Brooks's time, many African Americans in Chicago were restricted to living in 'Black Belt' areas, or areas sectioned for Black people to live. The tenement buildings in these areas were typically owned by white landowners who rented out tiny rooms to Black families.

"The Bean Eaters": Poem

Below is Gwendolyn Brooks's poem "The Bean Eaters" (1960) in its entirety.

"The Bean Eaters": Summary

The poem "The Bean Eaters" explores an old couple eating dinner of beans on chipped plates with flimsy cutlery. The speaker implies that they are good people who have lived decent lives, but their prime days are behind them. Their life is no longer exciting but routine and characterized by menial tasks, such as getting dressed and putting things away.

Their apartment defines them as it is filled with objects that evoke the couples' memories. The past contains memories that are both pleasurable and painful to recollect. The apartment is full of clutter that served a purpose at some point but is now just there as a reminder of the past.

"The Bean Eaters": Form and Meaning

"The Bean Eaters" is written in three stanzas with no set meter or rhyme scheme. The lack of rigid meter and rhyme scheme reflects the "casual affair" of the couple's dinner (2). Though there is no clear rhyme pattern, the poet uses both end rhymes and internal rhymes to link ideas and lend a simple flow to the reading of the poem.

The first two stanzas of the poem are quatrains (four-line stanzas). The repetition of this form suggests the monotony of the couple's lives. In the final stanza, the couple begins to remember past memories, which are reflected by the items that surround them. Though the last stanza appears to be four lines, it is actually only three—the last one being an extremely long one.

In comparison to the sparse, slightly invasive descriptions in the previous lines, the long list of specific objects in the last line provides a vivid picture of the crowded space that has come to define the couple. The poem conveys the overall meaning that factors such as age and economic status come to define the lives of people. However, Brooks suggests there is something both sweet and sad about simple living due to limited means. While, on the one hand, poverty lends itself to a simplified life and fewer desires, the people in the poem are not offered much of a choice in their circumstances. They are Black people who are sectioned off in society and seemingly forgotten.

"The Bean Eaters": Analysis of Literary Devices

Gwendolyn Brooks uses many literary devices in "The Bean Eaters." These devices are built upon her extremely careful and particular word choices to explore how age and economics can define the lives of ordinary people.

Analysis of Literary Devices: Stanza 1

While rereading the first stanza of "The Bean Eaters," think about why the poet chooses to use the words that are colored in pink (italics are used to mark rhyming words).

Gwendolyn Brooks opens her poem with the scene of a couple eating dinner. Brooks uses simple, but informative word choices and descriptions. The first significant detail shared with readers is that the couple is eating "beans mostly" (1). Beans often symbolize the possibility of growth and development, but in this case, they symbolize the couple's poverty due to their lack of opportunities for growth and development as a Black, aged couple.

Gwendolyn Brooks describes the couple as "this old yellow pair" (1). The term "yellow" is a slang term used to describe light-skinned or mixed-race Blacks in late 19th and early 20th century America. The term "high yellow" was frequently used to indicate the higher social standing of Blacks with lighter skin colors. Some had special privileges and were able to pass for white.

Gwendolyn Brooks uses the adjective "yellow" to play with the ideas of social class and status. She uses words that connotate false sophistication. For example, she describes their bean dinner as a "casual affair" and the chipped plates as "chipware" (3‐4). Brooks uses irony to imply an air of fine dining when in reality, the two are eating beans with chipped plates and cheap, flimsy utensils. Gwendolyn Brooks suggests that even though light-skinned African Americans are supposed to have greater opportunities and social status, they still struggle economically and face racial discrimination.

Fig. 2 - As opposed to having elegant place settings, the couple in "The bean Eaters" have chipped plates and tin utensils on a rickety table.

This air of sophistication is mimicked by the use of assonance, which elongates the vowel sounds to create a dramatized reading of the poetry. Brooks uses the rhyming words "pair," "affair," "chipware," and "flatware," to emphasize the long 'A' sounds and elongate the phrases.

Analysis of Literary Devices: Stanza 2

While rereading the second stanza of "The Bean Eaters," think about why Brooks uses repetition of certain words and phrases:

Gwendolyn Brooks begins the second stanza using anaphora through the repetition of the phrases "Two who" (1‐2). These two words rhyme and are repeated to emphasize the couples' loss of identity and individuality. The people in the poem are not referred to by name, they are simply two people who are "Mostly Good" and "have lived their day" (5‐6).

Gwendolyn Brooks depicts the lives of this unnamed old couple to suggest that their lives of poverty are unfortunately universal for their race and social class. Brooks also suggests that the mundanity of the couples' lives is a factor of age, as their days of purpose and action are in the past. Brooks uses repetition of the words "putting" and "on" to suggest the couple's cyclical routines.

The couple is characterized by what they have and their everyday actions rather than who they are as individuals. The man and woman are not even referred to separately. They are viewed and disregarded as one entity, as many African Americans were during times of rampant segregation and discrimination. Brooks also describes an ageist society, in which the worth and purpose of people appear to diminish with age.

Analysis of Literary Devices: Stanza 3

When rereading the third stanza of the poem, think about how the poet uses imagery to paint a picture of the old couple's room:

In the third stanza of the poem, the speaker shifts from describing the daily actions and occurrences of the couples' lives to their memories. Brooks uses ellipses to suggest that the people are drifting off into thoughts of the past. Readers do not get the specifics of what the people are remembering, but the poet uses alliteration in line 10, "Remembering, with twinklings and twinges," to suggest that they are remembering both beautiful and painful memories.

Gwendolyn Brooks hints at the beauty and pain of these memories through the imagery of the clutter that surrounds the couple as they lean over the creaky table. The syntax used in the final stanza is meant to overwhelm, as it is a run-on sentence that ends with a long list of the things that fill the couple's "rented back room" (11). Brooks uses polysyndeton, repeating the conjunction "and" between each of the listed items to lend an exasperated feel to the poem's reading (11).

All of the things listed are things that are outdated and likely once served purposes, but no longer do. The "dolls" likely belonged to a child who is now gone and grown. The "fringes" likely refer to decorative borders on old clothing and furniture, but also the couple, who lives on the fringe, or the outskirt of society. The couple is confined to this overcrowded back room where they exist only amidst their own things and routines. Through this poem, Brooks explores the segregation of African American communities.

Fig. 3 - The fact that the couple keeps receipts suggests they do not throw anything away. "The Beat Eaters" suggest that the couple is hoarding things to hold onto past memories.

"The Bean Eaters": Tone

The tone of "The Bean Eaters" is simple, straightforward, and nostalgic. The simple tone mimics the couple's simple way of life. Gwendolyn Brooks characterizes the couple through their circumstances of economic hardship and old age rather than anything specific to their individual personalities or desires.

There is a distant hint of sadness and nostalgia in the poetry, as the speaker describes a couple past their prime years, appearing to live a lonely, boring existence where the only thing that makes them feel is the memories of the past.

"The Bean Eaters": Themes

"The Bean Eaters" explores themes related to people who live as outcasts in society. In particular, Gwendolyn Brooks explores the themes of aging, memory, racial discrimination, and poverty.

Aging and Memory

In the poem, Gwendolyn Brooks presents aging as something that isolates individuals. She portrays the elderly couple as one who has lost purpose, zest, and ambition for life, though they are still "Mostly Good" people (5). Brooks suggests that once people grow old, they begin to live for the past rather than the present or future. However, Brooks is not critical of the couple, but rather sympathetic to their common struggles.

The mundanity of life is momentarily averted through the memory of the past. The couple appears to simply be going through the motions of life in the first two stanzas of the poem, and the first time they are characterized with feelings is when they remember the past with "twinklings and twinges," joy and sharp pain (10). The couple likely keeps all this useless clutter in their house because it evokes memories of the past.

Racial Discrimination and Poverty

On a deeper level, "The Bean Eaters" reflects the struggles of the urban Black community who were outcasted from society and subjected to poor living conditions. It is important to keep in mind that Gwendolyn Brooks grew up in segregational, pre-Civil Rights era America. Brooks grew up in an all-Black section of South Side Chicago called Bronzeville.

The poem, "The Bean Eaters," portrays a quality of life that was all too familiar to Brooks—one in which racial discrimination and oppression led to unjust poverty. The aged couple in the poem likely lived in a building owned by a white landlord who sectioned apartments into tiny rooms to rent to Black tenants and families. Even though the couple is light-skinned or "yellow," they still suffer from discrimination and poverty.

The couple does not have much, and they are defined by the few things that they have, including old "receipts" and "tobacco crumbs" (11). Brooks portrays an accustomed, nearly comforting picture of poverty to suggest society's acceptance of the struggles and segregation of Black Americans who live in the "back room" of the world (11).