The snapping beans poem by Lisa Parkers talks about a lady who is home to her grandmother from college for the weekend. She is busy snapping beans with her grandmother when she asked how school is going. She replies that it is fine though she was aware that her grandmother would never approve the new friends in college or what they talked about.  She wanted to tell her grandmother everything but was afraid of her reaction. The poem utilizes many elements to contribute to the appeal o the poem. The theme of the poem “snapping beans” is that to maintain order in life, one has to ignore his/her feelings sometimes.

The poem is a narration by the college girl. She is home for the weekend. The college is at the north while home is at the south. This is a representation of her two worlds. Her life at school is different from her lie at home.  There is some tension between the girl and the grandmother. The girl says, “We didn’t speak until the sun overcame the feathered tips of the cornfield”. All along, the grandmother has been humming and the girl has been silent.  This shows that the girl has some ear inside her. She is thinking about school and deliberating on how her grandmother would react after knowing what is really happening in school.

First, she is worried that her grandmother would not approve her friends in school or the things they wrote, she says, “I wanted to tell her the evening star was a planet, that my friends wore nose rings and wrote poetry about sex, about alcoholism, about Buddha”. She is afraid that the way of life in the north and the lifestyle of her friends would not be approved by her grandmother. The grandmother has been humming the song “what a friend we have in Jesus”. This shows she is religious and values good morals. For an old lady like her, writing about sex, alcoholism and Buddha would be immoral. Naturally, if she dared disclose this to her grandmother, it would create a problem.

Another issue that worried her was that despite all this, her life in school made her happy. Her friends and the things they wrote about made her happy but the guilt of being happy with all this was tearing her apart.

“I wanted to tell her
how my stomach burned acidic holes
at the thought of speaking in class,
speaking in an accent, speaking out of turn,
how I was tearing, splitting myself apart
with the slow-simmering guilt of being happy
despite it all.

After reviewing her feelings and emotions, her answer to the grandmother was that school was fine. She hid her feelings of happiness in the things they wrote and her friends. She knew her grandmother would not approve the college life. In the interest of maintaining order in her life, she opted to ignore her feelings. Order in lie is important. It should be maintained at all costs. The guilt o not revealing her feelings was tearing the girl apart but she still chooses to stay calm. Maybe the guilt of having revealed her feelings would have been even worse.

Do you need an Original High Quality Academic Custom Essay?