We Are Cool - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... The narrator claims that the youth "lurk late," and illegal activity is normally carried out in the dark (Lindberg 311). In that culture, darkness influences people to become what they desire; the dark alters images, making an individual who seems risk-free in the daylight seem menacing during the dark. The boy states that they normally "strike straight," which can be deduced to imply that they are open to rape, robbery or murder properly so that they cannot be prosecuted for them (Smith 49). Robbery, rape and murder were issues that started to be considered as significant issues in the society, in the 50s (Cummings 29). They "sing sin" meaning that they have many their misdeeds one would think that the misdeeds are elements of some kind of right-of-passage into adulthood (Smith 50). Finally, the last activity provided in the people is that youths "thin gin," which implies to weaken alcohol in order for them to make more money, and they perhaps do this at the pool hall (Smith 50).
The poem portrays the issues that youths in the 50s underwent, persuaded by the “pop” culture, when they left school. This was an age when youths started to have thoughts of building their lives using other means than education.
Lindberg, Kathryne V. "Whose Canon? Gwendolyn Brooks: Founder at the Center of the Margins." Gendered Modernisms: American Women Poets and Their Readers. Ed. Margaret Dickie and Thomas Travisano. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1996. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More