18 pages • 36 minutes read
Gwendolyn BrooksCynthia in the Snow
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1956A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Onomatopoeia
Brooks uses onomatopoeia, or the use of words which imitate the sound of what is being described to pull the reader into the world of the poem’s speaker, a young Black girl named Cynthia. Through Cynthia’s eyes, we hear the snow as it “SUSHES” (Line 1) and “hushes” (Line 2), words that approximate the sound made by snow blowing in the wind. The sibilants in both words are also an onomatopoeic reference to the quietness of a snow-covered city. Snow, particularly piled up on the ground, can often have a sound-insulating effect, as well, quieting or “hushing” entire neighborhoods.
Alliteration
Alliteration, repetition of the first letter or sound in adjacent or closely connected words, gives “Cynthia in the Snow” a musical quality. The poetic device first appears in the lines “And laughs away from me. / It laughs a lovely whiteness” (Lines 5-6), where the repeating syllable la sounds an echo of a children’s song refrain. Brooks then uses alliteration again, repeating the w sound in the description of snow as it “whitely whirls away” (Line 7). Again, the effect is to infuse the language with musicality, reinforcing the image of snow spinning around in rhythm.
Rhyme
Although the poem does not follow a distinct rhyme scheme, Brooks uses rhyme throughout the piece. The poem’s first two lines rhyme: “It SUSHES / It hushes” (Lines 1-2) creates the distinct sound of the wind blowing snow around as it dampens the noise of the road nearby. A few lines later, the poem’s speaker observes the snow with the internal rhyme “twitter-flitters” (Line 4), which emphasize the delicate twirling movement of each snowflake and invokes a childlike wordplay quality. Lines 5 and 8 rhyme as well, each ending on a long “e” sound, with “me” (Line 5) and “be” (Line 8) to carry the poem forward with musicality. The poem closes with two rhyming lines—“Still white as milk or shirts,
So beautiful it hurts” (Lines 10-11)—which connects the poem to older forms like the sonnet, which traditionally ends with a rhymed couplet.
Personification
Personification is the literary device of attributing human abilities to inanimate objects. In this poem, the snow is often personified as we observe it through the eyes of the poem’s speaker, a young girl. As she watches the snow fall, Cynthia infuses it with magical thinking, projecting onto the snow the capacity to quiet the world it blankets: The snow “SUSHES” and “hushes” (Lines 1-2) the noisy road. Intentional movement is possible for the snow as well, when it “twitter-flitters away from me” (Line 4), as though teasingly dancing while playing keep-away from Cynthia. Twice, the snow “laughs” (Lines 5-6), before traveling away from Cynthia’s part of the world to a mysterious “otherwhere” (Line 9). These traits of being able to speak and laugh and move, enforcing the snow’s metaphorical connection to race and whiteness, and strengthening the magical quality of the poem.
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By Gwendolyn Brooks
