18 pages • 36 minutes read
The Crazy Woman
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot (1922)
Gwendolyn Brooks read a variety of writers, from the novelist Richard Wright and the playwright and poet William Shakespeare, to the Modernist poet, playwright, and essayist T. S. Eliot. The Waste Land is one of Eliot’s most famous poems. In the long poem, Eliot tells—or “sings”—about gray, disquieting things, including death, abortion, and many unfulfilled desires. In Brooks’s poem, the speaker who gives voice to woe is a woman, while Eliot’s poem is spoken in the voice of multiple people, including an “old man with wrinkled dugs.” Similar to Eliot, Brooks rejects the typical associations with springtime, as Eliot’s poem links springtime to unhappiness with his famous opening line that announces, “April is the cruellest month.”
“the mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1945)
Brooks published “the mother” in her first collection of poems, A Street in Bronzeville (1945). The distinguished writer Richard Wright helped prepare the manuscript, but he did not think Brooks should include the poem due to its main theme: abortion. Brooks went against his advice and kept the poem in the book. The poem itself demonstrates how Brooks, like the so-called crazy woman, was not afraid to address fraught issues.
“November Graveyard” by Sylvia Plath (1956)
Like Brooks’s poem, Plath’s poem focuses on the gray time of year: November. Put in conversation with Brooks’s poem, Plath’s work reinforces the ghastliness of this month with an array of keen, haunting imagery. In “November Graveyard,” there are ghosts, skeletons, and howling. Plath’s depiction matches Brooks’s terrible “frosty dark” (Line 7). Additionally, Plath’s life underscores the fraught link between women, poetry, and the “crazy” label, since she had well known mental health battles, had to endure psychiatric institutions and electric shock therapy.
Further Literary Resources
Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks (1956)
Maud Martha is Gwendolyn Brooks’s first novel. The story traces Maud’s life from childhood to adulthood and does not turn away from disquieting themes. The book addresses death, racism, and the problems of married life, as Maud confronts her husband’s lack of physical and intellectual stimulation. Of course, the novel does not only focus on the bleak parts of life. The story shows the “gay” aspects of life, as Maud enjoys raising her daughter.
The Black Woman edited by Toni Cade Bambara (1970)
Nine years after Brooks published “The Crazy Woman,” Toni Cade Bambara published an anthology of writings by Black women about Black women. In her introduction, Bambara writes that the Black woman “is angry and tender, loving and hating.” As with “The Crazy Woman,” the anthology shows that some issues facing Black women are also issues confronting women more broadly, and provides an introduction to many of Brooks’s Black contemporaries including Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker, among others.
Sula by Toni Morrison (1979)
In her second novel, Toni Morrison creates a character much like the speaker in “The Crazy Woman.” Sula, the eponymous character, is an individual who does what she wants without feeling obligated to restrict her movements, identity, or voice to fit in with the majority. As with the crazy woman, Sula’s independence caused many people in her community to speak ill of her and ostracize her. However, as with the crazy women, Sula does not seem to care all that much about what “the little people” thought.
Listen to Poem
Listen to a YouTuber named Nay recite Brooks’s poem “The Crazy Woman” in a clear, melodious voice.
Unlock all 18 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Gwendolyn Brooks
