We Real Cool

We Real Cool

Life is blurry when your speeding down life's highway. Gwendolyn Brooks, the author of "We Real Cool," draws the map of making the choice of being cool, the path one travels on the journey to becoming cool, and the death the seven pool players are eventually lead to from being cool.

The seven cool pool players make their choice obvious with ( the use of we, to become cool as they state "We real cool. We left school." From that moment the pool players mentally made a left turn on to the highway that is "Cool". The use of "We" umbrellas the whole group of players, but it could also mean that the pool players in their choice of becoming cool understood their actions. They were aware of their negative actions and yet they rejoiced. "We sing sin. We thin gin," the players sang of sin and drank. Speeding up their life having fun, being "Cool" led to their ultimate demise which the players knew and sped up stating "We Die soon!"

The Path of being cool takes the players to a simplistic mind frame of looking cool for others and bringing negativity upon themselves. The pool player's reasons for them looking cool usually stem from not being themselves. To gain knowledge and stay in school would have been a natural response to the environment. But, because of the cool's influence on them they veered off course into a narrow road of ignorance and stupidity. The ignorance produced from the player's horns throughout their course making them "strike straight," bringing the negativity of violence and rage upon them. The negativity is regularly exercised through their actions. "We sing sin. We thin gin," with the negativity that they are emitting they can only expect back even more negative results which end in "We Die soon.'' The most negative that you can get is death.

Death is the final destination. Death is what can be expected when pool players travel down the road of cool. Death signifies the end of the players as a whole. After a lifetime of living on the cool expressway the cool pool players crash and burn. The expressway of the cool is unfinished. It symbolizes that no matter how or what they do that being "Cool" will always hurl them over the ledge. The ledge representing their road in which the players built as they traveled revealing that everyone is responsible for what happens to them. The players stopped building their road due to their desire to be cool.

The road of life is a double sided road full of detours and distractions. To be cool led the seven pool players down a dangerous and destructive path. While the often harder to maintain to stay in school is difficult, it may be more rewarding in the long haul.