"First Fight, Then Fiddle"

“First Fight, Then Fiddle”
The world as a whole has had problems and conflicts between societies, cultures, and world leaders. When asked the question of war people have many different opinions based on the organization of their beliefs and even religion. In many instances war is a duty of many young men trying to figure out their lives. Life is not very easy and more often than not it’s unbelievably tough. Lately I have learned to set my priorities and life will get easier. Gwendolyn Brooks has a similar approach in her poem “First Fight, Then Fiddle.” In this poem, her approach is to stress the importance of focusing on the important parts of life, and then once you have conquered the necessary you can enjoy life the way it should be enjoyed. Now you may read Brooks’ poem and wonder how it is about war, but it’s not about the type of war with blood and battle. Instead it’s about the biggest war: Life. Just like the young men who believe that their first priority in life is to battle for their country, many humans battle everyday trying to figure out their priorities. This is why I enjoyed Brooks’ poem because I felt I could interpret it. After reading this poem I had an understanding that Gwendolyn really believes that it is important to battle through the roughest parts of life so that you can enjoy life to its max. Brooks’ shows this many ways based on her writing of “First Fight, Then Fiddle.” In this analysis I have chosen three main lines that I believe support Brooks’ main purpose in the poem. I will analyze each of these lines to help readers of “First Fight, Then Fiddle, understand the poem more in depth beyond the line they read.
The first line that I think is important to study comes late in the poem. The line says; “Carry hate in front of you and harmony behind.” This can easily be interpreted many different ways but I looked at as keeping the unwanted things that may be tough in front of you and the fun, exciting things for when you have completely mastered the unwanted duties of life. The definition of hate is to dislike passionately; to be unwilling. If reviewed based on the second part of the definition, to be unwilling, you can conclude that Brooks intends to show that the most important things should be put ahead in life and they are often the things that we don’t want to do, things that we absolutely hate but have to do because it is a priority. Gwendolyn Brooks doesn’t stop with this line, as the poem continues she uses more exquisiteness descriptions to translate the meaning of her poem.
The next line says, “Be deaf to music and to beauty blind.” This line has almost the same meaning as the first line I analyzed. The only difference is this line only stresses the importance of keeping the attractive parts of life away. The first part, be deaf to music, is quite simple to me. This part of the poem is depicting music as something great and exciting. It doesn’t necessarily mean stop listening to music but instead it’s using this term to give an example of the parts of life we all want but know we can’t have until we finish the important life challenges. The second line has the same meaning but instead of using music as the example Brooks uses beauty. Everyone loves beauty because obviously it’s beautiful and in this line Brooks suggests being blind to beauty. Brooks gives advice in this line. She basically is saying give yourself an opportunity to succeed in life. She says this by advising you to be blind to beauty, meaning just because something looks fun and more appealing don’t let it distract you from your goal.
Brooks ends the poem with this line: “For having first to civilize a space wherein to play your violin with grace.” This line summarizes the entire poem giving an ending on what has been said throughout the poem. “For having first to civilize a space” can be understood like this, now that you are done with work. I believe this because of the way I interpreted the poem as a whole. This second part of this sentence says: “wherein to play your violin with grace.” In this part Brooks finishes the poem with great meaning. As stated before this poem is about doing the important things in life before you enjoy luxury. With this line the meaning is finally uncovered with the interpretation, now that work is done have fun and live life the way it should be.
Life, at times, may seem hard and unfair but you can’t let it discourage you. It’s almost like school and by this I mean it’s hard. When you have a paper doesn’t it seem like the only thing you do is procrastinate? When you are done you feel great and you enjoy whatever you’re going to do next even more. “First Fight, Then Fiddle,” by Gwendolyn Brooks, shows this by providing imaginary evidence. Just like the men fighting for us now, fight through life. It’s going to be hard no matter what you do and that’s just the cold hard truth, but look beyond the thick and see the thin. For once you have overcome the toughest parts of life, there is nothing left but good. Take Gwendolyn Brooks’ advice and fight the war, the war called life, before you take on beauty. Beauty has to start somewhere and in life the beauty comes after things are well served. The only way time will be given back is if you put in time.