The Egg Boiler in Comparison to Our Town

Errol Armstrong
Topic #2 “Art”
Comparison of Gwendolyn Brooks “The Egg Boiler”
To “Our Town” A Work of Art

Art is a skill that is worked through the conscious that helps us as individuals to bring forth a creative imagination. Often times, people put restraints on what beauty, culture, and love are. Act One of “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder and “The Egg Boiler” by Gwendolyn Brooks are both similar in which Mr. Webb and Professor Willard is sharing with us Grover’s Corners beauty and letting the people on the outside know that how they look at love, beauty, and culture is different than outsiders look at it just like Brooks talks about the style of poetry that is an art but people don’t look at it as poetry. Act One of “Our Town” basically walks you throughout Grover’s Corners and shows you who’s who and what typically goes on around town. The characters are introduced, the setting is laid out, and the stage manager/narrator brings you in and out of the play leading up to my main argument. The stage manager allows Professor Willard, from the State University, to give a brief history lesson on Grover’s Corners. From there, the one and only Mr. Webb is questioned by the audience. This part of the play works to the advantage of Grover’s Corners given that Mr. Webb is the publisher and editor of the local paper. He holds great credibility in giving response to the question asked by the “Lady in a Box.” She asks, “Oh, Mr. Webb? Mr. Webb, is there any culture or love of beauty in Grover’s Corners?” To sum up his response, Mr. Webb basically tells the woman yes but not what you consider culture, love, or beauty. He speaks on what gives the people pleasures, the sun coming up over the mountain, the birds, and the change of seasons. This paints a very beautiful picture in giving you a way to enjoy the simplest things in life in this community. “The Egg Boiler” resembles the pleasures of Act One in Our Town” in its attention to the focus on how Brooks explains poetry like something simple as boiling an egg. The poem states, “Being you, you cut your poetry from wood. The boiling of an egg is heavy art.” This statement seems simple but takes you into a more artistic approach on how to view poetry; however, Mr. Webb’s describes changing of the seasons as a form of art and beauty. “We fools, we cut our poems out of air, Night color, wind soprano, and such stuff. And sometimes weightlessness is much to bear. You mock it, though, you name it Not Enough.”-This statement is by Brooks in her poem. It at first seems difficult to understand what Brooks meant but if you examine the entire poem over and over you would consider that Brooks is describing to the person on the outside looking in that doesn’t write poetry on daily basis. As I closely examined “Our Town” more, I began to focus on the lady in the audience. She was merely the “Lady in a Box,” whereas Brooks is clearly referencing you as an outsider of the poetry society. When it comes to art you have to get out of the box. You have to go and explore beyond what you think is there. If “Lady in a Box” actually lived in Grover’s Corners, she would know the beauty that exists in the town, however, if you were a poet writing a sonnet like “The Egg Boiler,” you know that free flowing ideas going above and beyond are cyphered and spat out on paper, which is made from wood, to give you the art. Experience is what gives both Brooks and Mr. Webb’s explanation on their art and beauty. As a result both the play and the poem present very valid points as having valid beauty and an art form that you don’t have to reach too far to gain its attention. In New Hampshire, the colors of the leaves are beautiful to look at as you pass by. The stage manager mentions in the beginning of “Our Town”, “The sky is beginning to show some streaks of light over in the East there, behind our mount’in.” Brooks states, “Shaping a gorgeous Nothingness from cloud.” Both statements could sound bland but on further examination you have to evaluate the two and consider that in between those lines lie a natural art form, one in writing and the other seeing beyond just an ordinary town. Most people are very stereotypical when it comes to judging art, culture and beauty. Artists have minds so creative that they can take an egg and make it into another universe. It may seem plain to a city person or someone who has never lived in a country like town but natural beauty for someone like Mr. Webb is defined by everyday living having a free flowing mind as a poet would. Nonetheless, you have to notice how “The Lady in the Box” responded to Mr. Webb’s answer, “So I thought.” She passed judgment before he responded. “You watch us eat your egg, and laugh aloud” states Brooks. This shows me that Brooks is comparing two types of poets in the end, one who has strict guidelines and one who comes with ideas like an out of body experience almost like freestyle. The unorthodox listens to the orthodox but the question is raised is that what you consider poetry. The unorthodox managed to get outside and walk off the foundation a little bit to create a whole different language of poetry. Therefore, the egg was eaten by the one who was unorthodox. Art is a beautiful thing.