Queen of the Blues by Gwendolyn Brooks

"Queen of the Blues" by Gwendolyn Brooks is a peom about a woman named Mame who spends her time at the Midnight Club singing the blues. This poem tells a story of a somewhat depressed woman because of the fact that she has no one to love her. Her mother passed away two to three years earlier, she has no brothers to defend or care about her. She also has no kids to nurture and her father just uses her for her money. Mame goes to this club to get some kind of appreciation in her life or at least recognition for her effort at singing in front of a group of strangers. Mame is soon surprised and becomes quickly upset when she notices that the men at the club don't respect her. Whenever she passes them they treat her like she is a piece of meat. They don't treat her like a laady becuase they slap her thighs and pinch her arms. As a lady, Mame wants the men to tip there hats to her just as they do to any other woman. Her burning question at the end of the poem is "Why don't they tip their hats to a queen?"

I beleive this story to be a narrative poem becuase it tells a story of a woman going through a lot in her life. It expresses the emotion this woman has and desire to be loved by another because she probably hasn't experienced the type of attention or care since her mother passed a few years earlier. I also believe it to be a narrative because there is a narrator telling the story of Mame.

The central theme is about a poor soul who is trapped in the club life who strives to be set free and loved but is set back by the fact that men don't respect her. The main issue Mame has is that she doesn't feel appreicated by men. She cries at how well she took care of her father by scrubbing kitchen floors for people until her knees were rusty. How she loved her father dearly, and gave every penny earned to him, just to see her hard earned money being spent on a prostitute. Mame also goes on to plea for a man to love her until she dies, but can't seem to find the right man in Chicago. Another example of her dislike for men is when she states that "men are low down, dirty and mean."

I also believe that the men in the poem don't appreciate her because of the way she is carrying herself while singing the blues. Although Mame trys to express herself and is obviously trying hard because her performance included shaking her body, rolling her hips, and snapping her fingers, her act is not

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