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Bri Neves

Dr. Patrick Jackson

ENGL 2157

June 29, 2011

When Idealism Numbs: The Emotional Transformation of Soldiers

In Gwendolyn Brook’s Poetry

War is a very difficult thing to understand, especially without the knowledge that comes

with personal experience. Gwendolyn Brooks, however, attempts to explore this understanding

in her poetry by establishing many of her speakers as soldiers. Some of these poems depict life

before war, adventure, and the excitement many soldiers face on their journeys. Others focus on

life during the war where the action is happening, where the stakes are high, and several of a

soldier’s misconceptions begin to deteriorate. Many poems following this are set after the war, in

which a soldier reflects on this experience, often resulting in deep introspection. This

introspection often leads to the idea that life is not all that the speaker once imagined it to be. In

fact, it has become nothing but a world of danger and suspicion. With this, Brooks utilizes the

idealism of youth, crushes it with the devastating impacts of war, and conveys the eventual

numbness felt by many trauma survivors. Thus, with their abrupt tone shifts and swift topic

changes, these poems convey not only a situational transition in a soldier’s life, but an emotional

learning process, which encompasses an internal struggle between his youthful idealism and his

emotional numbness.

Many of Gwendolyn Brooks’s poems in the set “Gay Chaps at the Bar” convey the

concepts of hope, adventure, and confidence. In all of these poems, when these concepts carry

positive connotations, they have one thing in common; they are associated with youth and a
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soldier’s life before entering into war. This life is filled with dreams, patriotism, and unrealistic

expectations about the future. Confidence is displayed in “Gay Chaps at the Bar” with the

sentence “We knew how to order” (1). As the poem progresses, the speaker spends a while

listing many more things that he and his fellow comrades “knew” how to do (“knew” being a

clear indication of self confidence) such as “[w]hether the raillery should be slightly iced / And

given green, or served up hot and lush” (3-4). These are very specific ways to order drinks and

say a lot about a person socially. Other things they “knew” how to do according to this poem

were “…how to give to women / the summer spread, the tropics, of our love” and “when to

persist, or hold a hunger off” (5-7). Women and relationships, not unlike the intricacies of

ordering a drink, are sometimes difficult to understand, so claiming that the speaker and his

fellow men were experts in those types of situations was a very huge statement to make. They

also knew, according to the poem, “white speech” and “[h]ow to make a look an omen” (8).

However, all of these talents that such soldiers happened to acquire in their lifetime (most likely

before going to war) have one very important thing in common; they have nothing to do with

war. This becomes even more significant when the speaker’s tone abruptly shifts into one less

self-assured statement: “But nothing ever taught us to be islands” (9). “Islands” in this statement

is symbolic of the idea of every man for himself, particularly in this case when it comes to

fighting in a war. As Melhem states, "And how ineffectual, the knowledge, the order, and,

finally, how false! The poem moves from social restraints to natural ones--death and the jungle;

from the officers' known place in the ordered, white-dominated world of the past towards the

spontaneous, unknown islands of their present and future and, by analogy, of their selves" (44).

Here the soldiers are at the bar drinking, courting women, and effortlessly fitting in with several

groups of people, but once you place them alone on the battlefield, they have no idea what to do.
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Social cues and suave mannerisms, which are the soldiers’ specialties, are not helpful in war. In

fact, the speaker reinforces this very idea in the sentence, “And smart athletic language for this

hour / Was not in the curriculum”, “this hour” being the hour of war and “curriculum”

symbolizing knowledge. Thus, because what they already knew was not in the curriculum, the

soldiers are forced to learn the skills they have not yet developed, not just by training, but by

being thrown into the war itself. This expresses the doubt and certainty that creeps up on these

soldiers as the war begins, serving as a turning point to the emotions of these soldiers.

Although, the emotions of these soldiers are already morphing, the first few poems in

Brooks’s “Gay Chaps at the Bar” set, particularly “firstly inclined to take what is told” and “God

works in a mysterious way” contain glimpses of the soldier’s former selves. Both of these poems

describe an earlier stage in the life of a solider—a stage in which denial has plenty of room to

rear its ugly head every once in a while. “Firstly inclined to take what is told” describes the early

eagerness of a soldier to follow orders. Youth is explicitly even conveyed here in the phrase,

“[f]or youth is a frail thing, not unafraid. / Firstly inclined to take what is told. / Firstly inclined

to lean. Greedy to give/Faith tidy and total. To a total God. / With billowing heartiness and no

whit withheld.” (10-13) Faith here is portrayed as something easy to find and to give. “God

works in a mysterious way”, which follows directly after these lines, expresses a similar

sentiment but in a different way—by reaching out to the external world to make sense of one’s

situation. The external world, in this poem, refers to both the spiritual world (in portraying God

as one who holds all the answers) and life here on Earth (in portraying humans as impatient

beings who do not know the answers.) Change here is described as “submit[ing] to winds” (2)

and the modern human as one who has “never heard of tact/Or timeliness/Or mystery that

shrouds/Immortal joy.” (5-7) Faith is taken so seriously here that the lack of faith is treated with
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outright social criticism. These divergences from the topic at hand are yet another way that a

soldier can remain comfortably in denial, at least at the beginning. Therefore, emotions are

portrayed not just as a product of their experiences, but a never-ending process that travels

through each individual life.

Meanwhile, loved ones of the soldiers are also experiencing the “winds” (2) of change;

this is indicated by the speaker's tone shift in "piano after war" from "warm[ing] a room" and

"rejuvinat[ing] a past" to "a multiplying cry. / A cry of bitter dead men who will never / Attend a

gentle maker of musical joy." In fact, the way the speaker reacts to this new found realization is

not unlike the way a soldier reacts to his environment after returning from war: "Then my

thawed eye will go again to ice. / And stone will shove the softness from my face." The word

"softness" when applied to one's appearance and overall impression, is often expressed towards

youth. For instance, babies have soft skin. Adolescences before experiencing the tolls of heart

break, have soft hearts ready to be molded. The image of stone shoving such softness from the

speaker's face thus represents two things—the lost idealism in the speaker's attitude and the

fading of youth. With this overall tone as well, there is a certain sense of numbness--the very

same numbness that affects the lives of soldiers every day. By using an outsider's perspective,

one who has not fought in war, but one close enough to the issue to witness

its devastating effects, particularly death and grief, the speaker emphasizes a very important

reality; the aftermath of war affects loved ones just as much as soldiers, but in a different

way. As Melhem states: "Their intrusion on the speaker's reverie connotes not only human

sacrifice, but the inevitable postwar reappraisal" (44). In essence, the speaker is having very

similar doubts about the situations as the soldiers do and analyzes the war constantly as a result
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of these doubts. Analysis, thus, begins to form a sea of questions—one that surviving soldiers

and loved ones of soldiers, living or dead, must continue to swim through their entire lives.

The interaction between soldiers and their loved ones also changes as these poems

progress. “Love note I: Surely” and “love note II: Flags”, are letters written from a soldier’s

perspective; the first one is written to his love interest awaiting his return and the second one is

to the flag, which expresses a smorgasbord of feelings towards his now wavering patriotism.

Both of these poems are connected by a singular theme—the loss of faith, not just in war, but in

everything, including mankind. As Melhem points out, "He questions every aspect of his life, his

received politico-religious beliefs and, by implication, his personal relationships. The violet, a

spring flower; connotes modesty, among other associations, and symbolizes a love returned"

(49). Love for this soldier—both in romance and in the love for his country—has completely

changed its meaning. The soldier, therefore, has started to become emotionally numb in all areas

of his life, taking what he has learned from war and channeling it into his newfound ability to

become suspicious of others and their motives. In fact, the soldier becomes so suspicious that he

describes the flag’s love as “changeful”, when in reality the soldier is the one who has changed

as a result of his experience (12). The combination of this suspicion and the soldier’s newfound

nihilistic approach to life lead to constant questioning and an elevated sense of what could be

wrong with the world.

All in all, life for these soldiers is not getting any easier. However, we are provided with

one last poem of the collection depicting the aftermath of war—or at least what the speaker

thinks is the aftermath of war. Brook’s poem “The progress” is a poem of recovery and

rebuilding from the emotional trauma underwent by the speaker. It begins with a confident
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phrase symbolizing the soldiers’ continued patriotism and loyalty, “And still we wear our

uniforms” (1), and ends with a doubting rhetorical question (“For even if we come out standing

up / How shall we smile, congratulate: and how / Settle in chairs?”) precluding the beginning of

yet another war: “Listen, listen. The step/Of iron feet again. And again wild” (11-14). Ending a

series of related poems with yet another beginning is a strong message, stating “the war is never

over.” In the way of emotional transformations of these soldiers, these messages contain another

meaning; the transformation itself is never over. Whether a veteran or one who is still fighting,

the internal struggle between a soldier’s youthful idealism and nagging doubts never truly ends.
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Works Cited

Brooks, Gwendolyn. Selected Poems. HarperCollins, 2006. 22-29. Print

Melhem, D.H. Gwendolyn Brooks: Poetry and the Heroic Voice. Lexington: UP of Kentucky,

1987