Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "The Bean Eaters" highlights the loneliness and poverty of an elderly couple, people who have been forgotten by virtually everyone. They have been forgotten by their children who have grown up and gone; they have been forgotten by society and the government which in a sense ignores the economic inequalities they suffer from, forcing them to eat beans every single day. Even as our world modernizes, there are still people experiencing extreme poverty. These people are often ignored by politics and shunned by society at large, a message that is elicited through literary elements such as symbolism, metaphor, and rhyme. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't". 't Be Banned'? Get an Original Essay The message the writer is trying to convey is that this poem is about a poor old couple who are yellowed like an old paper or an old leaf (they eat mostly beans, this old yellow couple). In the second and third lines of the first stanza, the author tries to show that this couple has no fancy preparations or plans for dinner, even their plates are old and chipped (dinner is a casual affair. Simple chips on a smooth wood and creaking). The author repeated the word “plans” twice in line 3 to emphasize how poor they are. The old couple appears to be "casual" most likely because they are too poor to be anything more. Line 5, stanza two, (two that are mostly good) the author uses the word “Mostly good.” This is probably Brooks' way of telling us that the couple were not angels. They were mostly good, in the sense that they were like normal people like you and me, who have good sides and bad sides. They may have done something wrong in the past, but that doesn't make them entirely bad people. Lines 7 (But keep getting dressed... and putting things away). While they may have been forgotten by many, life goes on for this couple, so they continue to wake up, get dressed, and live another day of their sad and lonely lives. The word remember occurs twice, first in the 9th stanza and then in the 10th stanza (And remember…remember with a blink and a pang). Since they are old, they tend to remember the good old days. They do it with sparkles and pangs. Some memories are happy, so they remember with a twinkle in their eyes, while others perhaps are sad and painful, which makes them pang with pain. The poem ends with the author listing a series of objects the couple is surrounded by. The author is trying to show us all the things that the couple has accumulated throughout their lives. Those things most likely once belonged to their children and are now all this couple has as mementos of their happier days. The three central literary elements in this poem are symbolism, metaphor, and rhyme. The definition of symbolism is the use of symbols to indicate ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings other than their literal sense. The title of the poem is itself symbolic because it represents the poverty of the couple in the poem; Beans are a cheap food and can even be grown at will, and the couple eat them so often that they are called "the bean eaters", indicating the severity of their poverty. The simple chip crockery, the tin cutlery, the creaking wood are the other symbols of the couple's poverty. Beads, receipts, dolls, clothes, tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes could be a symbol of the couple's life before they became old and lonely. The second literary element identified in this poem is metaphor. A metaphor describes one thing as another. There.