SOURCE: "'Define … the Whirlwind': Gwendolyn Brooks' Epic Sign for a Generation," in Black American Poets Between Worlds, 1940–1960, edited by R. Baxter Miller, University of Tennessee Press, 1986, pp. 160-73.

In the following essay, Miller examines the major themes and structure of In the Mecca. According to Miller, Brooks draws upon Anglo-American poetry, Judeo-Christian myth, and folklore to explore the paradox of the American Dream within the context of African-American experience.

For twenty-three years, Gwendolyn Brooks tried to write her epic In the Mecca (1968). Her portraits of the Black community began with Street in Bronzeville (1945) and continued with Annie Allen (1949), Maud Martha (1953), and Bean Eaters (1960). But these books did not fulfill her ambition to write in the heroic genre. An epic should rank with the classics; it should portray the narrator's journey, the obstacles encountered, and the final vision of victory.

Brooks tried to write a Black epic in the...