A Study Guide for Gwendolyn Brooks's "Home"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Gwendolyn Brooks's "Home," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535824842

Book preview

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Home

Gwendolyn Brooks

1953

Introduction

Although Gwendolyn Brooks is better known for poetry than for prose, she published one novel, Maud Martha, in 1953. Nestled within this tale of a young African American woman coming of age is the chapter titled Home. This story, widely anthologized, paints a picture of a family fearful of losing their home, and everything with it, due to financial hard times. Maud Martha, including Home, remains in print in the 1993 edition and is easily available at libraries, bookstores, and online.

In Maud Martha, A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, Blacks, and many other volumes, Brooks demonstrates a rare talent for language that sings and social commentary that never preaches. The first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize, Brooks remained dedicated to her community and committed to helping young writers throughout her life. Anyone who had the honor of meeting Brooks could not fail to recognize her kindness, generosity, and humility.

Author Biography

Brooks was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas, to David Anderson Brooks (a janitor) and Keziah Corinne Wims Brooks (a teacher). The family moved to Chicago while Brooks was quite young. Her well-educated mother was a great influence on Brooks. Her father's ambition had been to become a doctor, an ambition he was unable to fulfill due to a lack of money. The family highly valued education, and both parents encouraged their daughter to read and write. Brooks often told the story that when she was a child of nine or so, she presented her parents with her first poem. Her parents were lavish in their praise, predicting that she would become a female Paul Lawrence Dunbar. From that point on, Brooks never had to do dishes again because her parents wanted her to devote her time to writing poetry.

When she was thirteen, Brooks published her first poem in a children's magazine. By the time she was sixteen, she had published some seventy-five poems. Her mother took her to meet the famous African American poets James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes while Brooks was still in high school. The poets were generous with their encouragement and remained influential in Brooks's life as she grew as a writer.

In 1936, Brooks graduated from Wilson Junior College. She worked as a publicity director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Youth Council from 1937 to 1938. She married Henry Lowington Blakely II in 1938. The couple had two children, Henry Lowington Blakely III, born in 1940, and a daughter, Nora, born in 1951. During the early years of her marriage, Brooks continued to write poetry and attended formative poetry workshops. More and more, her work focused on