Chris Snow
Professor Griffiths
Final Draft
The poem “Sadie and Maud,” written by Gwendolyn Brooks was written sometime during the 1960’s. It vividly describes two African American sisters bound by blood, and how they chose to live their lives in opposite directions. This time period in which Brooks illustrates this piece was one of the roughest for African American fighting against racial discrimination and for their civil rights. The two sisters, Sadie and Maud each lived outlandish lives. Sadie, an unmarried and non-college educated, had two children out of wedlock is considered to be an embarrassment to mother, father and Maud. However, Sadie still managed to live life to the fullest. Maud, on the other hand owns property but had lived alone, was college educated, and lastly is not married. When reading this one would think Sadie is radical. However, when taken into account when this piece was written, this is not the case.
Maud is considered a radical person because it would have been extremely easy to follow in Sadie’s footsteps. Maud chose a different life for herself. She chose to remain unmarried and childless, living alone. Maud also had strong convictions within herself during a time when African Americans were discriminated and negatively stereotyped. During this it was common for women to be married and to produce children. For this was not uncommon to have children out of wedlock, like Maud’s sister. From the days of slavery back in the 1940’s, African American women were not permitted to marry. Nonetheless, these women were still giving birth to children. In the poem it is known that Maud remained unmarried nor had any children because Brooks’ recites “She is living all alone in this old house.”(Brooks, Stanza 4) It remained unknown whether Maud was unable to find herself a soul mate or if she just chose to remain unmarried. Due to her driven personality, one could believe that if she wanted marriage she could have easily accomplished the...