Marking Time Versus Enduring in Gwendolyn Brook's "The Bean Eaters" Gwendolyn Brook's poem "The Beann Eater's runs only eleven lines. It is written in plain language about very plain people. Yet its meaning is ambigous. One critic, George E. Kent, says the old couple who eat beans "have had their day and exit now as time-markers"(141), However, another reader, D. H. Melhem, perceives not so much time marking as "endurance" in the old couple (123). Is this poem a desparing picture of old age or a more positive portrait? "The Bean Eaters" describes an "old yellow pair" who "eat beans ....

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