Silence and Becoming in the Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks

This paper examines Gwendolyn Brooks’ poems “Aloneness,” “The Tiger,” and “Primer for Blacks” in which it analyses the poet’s concept of identity neither as innate nor as natural but rather as an acquired process that takes place through a series of socialization tactics and personal self-regulation mechanisms. As opposed to interpretations that concentrate solely on the racial and protesting nature of Brooks’ poetry, this research seeks to highlight the micro-social aspect of the processes of shaping one’s identity through emotional control, perception regulation, and behavioural conditioning. The term ‘pedagogy of the self’ is introduced to account for the didactic nature of Brooks’ minimalist poetry and silent communication strategy as well as the role played by her literary techniques in teaching and shaping identity. Solitude in “Aloneness” stands for an emotion regulated internally due to the process of self-discipline and conditioning; similarly, caution and restraint in “The Tiger” help regulate one’s perception and instinctive behaviour as the individual attempts to cope with the threatening situation. In “Primer for Blacks,” identity is consciously articulated as the result of the discipline rather than opposition to it. Moreover, this paradigm is located in relation to the current realities of self-monitoring, emotion regulation, and digital self-presentation, where Brooks’ poems prefigure the modern reality in which identity formation becomes an ongoing process of self-regulation based on internalized norms

Instinct · Poetry · Silence · Solitude · Autobiographical and Biographical Writing · Historical Studies of British Isles · Irish and British Studies