Sadie and Maud

Sadie and Maud
Gwendolyn Brooks
(1917- 2000)

Maud went to college.
Sadie stayed at home.
Sadie scraped life
With a fine-tooth comb

She didn’t leave a tangle in.
Her comb found every strand.
Sadie was one of the livingest chits
In all the land.

Sadie bore two babies
Under her maiden name.
Maud and Ma and Papa
Nearly died of shame.

When Sadie said her last so-long
Her girls struck out from home.
(Sadie had left as heritage
Her fine-tooth comb.)

Maud, who went to college,
Is a thin brown mouse.
She is living all alone
In this old house.


Belonging to Genetic Structuralism school of Lucien Goldmann, I cannot separate the work from the background of the poet and the society when a certain work was produced. Brooks was born in 1917 in Kansas, and grew up in chicago. She herself divided her writing career into two phases, “pre-1967” and “post-1967”. In 1967 when she attended the Second Black Writers’ Conference at Fisk University, Brooks met a number of young black poets who persuaded her that “black poets should write as blacks, about blacks, and address themselves to blacks.” It means, after that conference, Brooks’ awareness of her being African American poet made her dedicate more time and work for Black society in America.

Gilbert and Gubar stated that although Brooks did not claim herself as a feminist, believing that racial issues must take priority over gender questions, she has always written with extraordinary sympathy about the dilemmas of female characters. This can be clearly seen in the poem I posted above “Sadie and Maud”.

Maud went to college.
Sadie stayed at home.

The first two lines in stanza one illustrated two sisters who choose different kind of life, Maud goes to college, to study for a betterment in her own future life while Sadie her sister chooses to stay at home. Living in an era where education is very important for someone’s success in life, one can directly conclude that Maud will have a better future than her sister Sadie.
However, if one jumps into the last stanza

Maud, who went to college,
Is a thin brown mouse.
She is living all alone
In this old house.

He/she will be surprised because things do not turn like what he/she expects. Maud is even lonely, all alone at home, feeling desperate about her life.
What happens in the process of those two sisters’ lives?

Sadie scraped life
With a fine-tooth comb

She didn’t leave a tangle in.
Her comb found every strand.

The lines three and four of stanza one illustrates that life is not easy for Sadie, for she does not go to college, she has to struggle to survive. “with a fine-tooth comb” can be interpreted as she chooses to use her physical beauty to survive. The first and second lines of stanza two depicts the continuation of the previous lines. Her struggle indeed makes her survive, she can handle every problem coming to her, with her own way of life that she chooses (by not going to college).

Sadie was one of the livingest chits
In all the land.

Lines three and four of stanza two illustrates that Sadie is the happiest girl in her community despite the fact that she has to undergo many severe problems in her struggle. Her struggle to survive by choosing “the best” life that suits her personality does make her happy.

Sadie bore two babies
Under her maiden name.
Maud and Ma and Papa
Nearly died of shame.

Stanza three describes one episode in Sadie’s life as “one of the livingest chits in all the land”. She has two babies outside the wedlock. Therefore, she makes her sister, Maud, and her parents very ashamed. Maud and her two parents obviously follow the consensus of “good girl” as required by The Cult of True Womanhood spread since the nineteenth century America that a girl must keep her virginity before getting married. Therefore what Sadie has done really makes them almost die because of feeling humiliated by society.

Does Sadie ever regret of her own choice—not to go to college, to use her physical beauty to survive, to have babies outside the wedlock? The following four lines in stanza four shows that.

When Sadie said her last so-long
Her girls struck out from home.
(Sadie had left as heritage
Her fine-tooth comb.)

Before Sadie dies, she “teaches” her two daughters to follow her step in their life, “Be yourself. Do what you think will make you happy. And be responsible with your own choice. Don’t just follow the consensus of “good norm” of society if you don’t feel happy with that.”
Since 1960s after the abolishment of Jim Crow Law in America, many African American people want to forget their “heritage” as Black people and start to follow the habit of the white (read => the European American). Many feel ashamed to do the “habit” of their parents or grandparents or older generations.

Brooks depicts Maud who follows the bulk of white women who go to college in that era, without realizing what it is for, without trying to like doing it, only as an “obligation” to be considered as “the educated” person. Doing something because it is an obligation without knowing the significance why doing it, without enjoying it will just make Maud—or anybody else—unhappy.
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