An Analysis of “Sadie and Maud” by Gwendolyn Brooks
...uld live everyday as if its their last. The persona of this poem is a third person that knows or knows of Sadie and Maud and their life growing up. The tone, or attitude of the poet, starts out very straight forward and objective while the persona speaks of Sadie and Maud growing up; however, in the final stanza, you can sense the tone becoming more sympathetic towards Sadie since she was ridiculed for her lifestyle, yet Maud is the one that is all alone. The diction in the poem is simple and informal because of its word choice and sentence structure. There are two metaphors in this poem that let you know a lot about the major theme of the “Sadie and Maud.” “Sadie scraped life / with a fine tooth comb” (3-4) describes her lifestyle which was to live early day to its fullest and to not worry about what others think. Sadie lived her life the way she wanted, and Maud did everything the normal and supposed right way. Maud went to college while Sadie was ridiculed for her lifestyle and having two children out of wedlock. Back in the 40’s when this poem was published and even today, women are looked down upon for having babies outside of marriage. Sadie passed on her lifestyle and vest for life to her daughters when she passed away, yet Maud was left all alone in her house. The next metaphor is “Maud, who went to college, / is a thin brown mouse” (17-18) which describes Maud as being a thin, timid black woman all alone fearful of life. Maud ends up alone after shaming Sadie and her daughters and after her parents have already passed away. These two metaphors teach the reader a lot about both Sadie and Maud, and they help he or she to see the overall theme of the poem. The concept of “carpe diem” is basically the lifestyle that Sadie lives. She lived her life not looking back, and society and her family shamed her. Sadie may have died young, but she loved living life and shared her morals and values with her daughters as stated in the line “Sadie had left as heritage / her fine-tooth comb” (15-16). Maud, on the other hand, went to college and did everything that was asked of her, yet she is the one at the end that is all alone and af...