We studied “The Rose that Grew from the Concrete”, written by Tupac Shakur in class and I was taken by the last line. It reads: “when no one else ever cared”; it does not have enough context to explain all of the implied elements such as the object of the caring. This ambiguity was frustrating at first, but I have discovered that is able represent multiple relevant social issues, all of which can be explained through the context of Bigger Thomas. He represents the flowers that never made it through the concrete.
The first interpretation is that nobody ever cared about or noticed what the flower was doing until it got out. The flower had to go through the process of “proving nature’s law is wrong” before ever being noticed. The people that are referenced as “caring” would be the rich or white people because that is what the concrete represented. For Bigger, none of these people ever noticed him until he made his crack in the concrete (though he never blossomed). He was nobody to the white people in his society.
To take the word more literally, it could mean that no one ever cared for and helped the flower grow. The poem describes it as not “having feet” and learning by itself; the feet are the foundation provided by others that it never had when oppressed. Bigger feels very hopeless in this regard. He reminisces on how his ambition was stripped from him.
Lastly, the subject of the caring might be the all of the suppressed people. This flower was the only one “to breathe fresh air”. all of the others did not even care to try. They were lacking all ambition to accomplish something great beyond what the suppressors allowed them. Bigger Thomas was one of those that did not care and his friends never had plan to even try to escape their situation. Only after the first murder did bigger start to care.
I believe that any of these interpretations are possible, backed by the rest of the poem. For me, the last line of a poem is the most important and this one is masterfully constructed. The ambiguity that I once did not understand, I now venerate.
Those are definitely some very interesting takes on the last line of the poem "The Rose That Grew From The Concrete". I personally had the opposite reaction to the last line when I first heard it. I loved that it was so vague and could be applied to pretty much every aspect of society and life. However, after going over it in more depth I started to look more for one single meaning which it was trying to convey. The meaning which I ended up taking away from it was that people should always believe in themselves and their ability to do amazing things, even if they feel like no one seems to care and it's going unappreciated in the world.
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction was that the "no one ever cared" referred to the concrete itself. It's not like the concrete itself allowed the rose to grow, it merely slipped to through a crack, a flaw in the concrete. And if it wasn't for the concrete, it's possible that many more flowers could grow just like the rose. But I don't see why all of these possibilities can't be true at the same time. That's the best part about art -- personal interpretation is just as important as the intention with which it was written.
ReplyDeleteI saw the concrete as symbolizing the barrier between white and black/rich and poor society. I saw the rich, white people walking on top of this sidewalk, blind to what is below them, suppressing the flowers even more, and not wanting anything to break through for fear of ruining the pristine world they have created for themselves. I agree that black/poor people represented the flowers, as many, rather than trying to rise above, allow this wall to keep them where they are and don't aspire to greater things, like Bigger Thomas. I took the line "it learned to walk without having feet" to mean that no one was rooting for this flower to break through a crack in the concrete. It lacked support, but still rose above.
ReplyDeleteI think the ambiguity of the line is really cool. Since any of the interpretations can make sense, I feel like that poem says different things to each person that reads it, and that is good because it doesn't limit what people can get from the poem. My interpretation of the line was that no one cares about the rose at all, even after it has broken through the concrete, and because of this the poem is trying to say that even if no one notices what you do, you should still try and aim high and succeed. The rose had no support before or after, but it kept growing and eventually broke through and allowed itself to live.
ReplyDeleteI like your analogy to the poem's flower growing from the crack in the sidewalk, but I have a different take on it. Bigger got out from under the concrete, but when he did, he was a weed. The white people cared alright, after he murdered and 'raped' Mary, and did everything they could to squash him back under the concrete.
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