Boy Breaking Glass

Brooks uses music as a motif to reinforce the theme of Redefining Art. Musical terms occur throughout the poem, and Brooks deploys these terms to encourage the reader to see the boy’s breaking of the window as art. For example, in Line 4, “sonic” encourages the reader to move from thinking of the broken window as a piece of visual art to thinking of the sound it makes when the boy breaks it—that is the “cry of art” (Line 1) one can hear. If the sound of the broken window is music, it is fleeting, just like the boy’s moment of rebellion. A “première” (Line 4) is the debut of any piece of art; Brooks’s word choice indicates that this is the first time the boy has made an effort to reshape the environment around him rather than allowing it to shape him. The boy’s attack on the material conditions around him can be art, especially if one defines art as acting on materials and making them into something else.

Elsewhere, Brooks relies on music to represent the invisibility and silencing of the boy, as when the boy exclaims that what he is creating is “not a note” and “not an overture” (Lines 7-8). These negatives reflect the absence of representation of the boy in United States art and culture. Finally, Brooks relies on “hymn” (Line 27) and “snare” (Line 27) at the end of the poem to invoke the ambiguity the reader/observer should feel about the future of the boy. The positive connotations of those terms lead the reader to see the boy’s frustrated effort to be heard as something sacred, as a drum calling the readers to march to create a better future for the boy. The negative connotations of those terms indicate that the boy is merely a sign of more death and destruction to come because of the conditions of his life.

The broken window in the poem is a symbol of both despair and rebellion. It is a sign of despair because it is what the boy has in place of more traditional artistic means of self-expression. As self-expression, the window is a “beautiful flaw” (Line 5), a “terrible ornament” (Line 5), a “hole” (Line 7), and “desecration” (Line 8). The connotation of these descriptions is negative and reflects the sense that the boy is invisible and unwanted, hence his despair. The broken window is also a symbol of rebellion. Breaking a window damages property, but it also disrupts the image of the boy stuck inside a neighborhood that deprives him of other avenues of self-expression. In terms of broader cultural meaning, a broken window is a symbol of neglect, especially in urban communities that suffer from a lack of resources.