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How Does Jean Toomer Use Imagery In Reapers

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Jean Toomer in “Reapers” and Kevin Prufer in “Pause, Pause” utilize visual and auditory to convey vastly different messages, with Toomer using imagery to create a dark tone and communicate the lack of respect for black lives during the slavery era and Prufer using imagery to celebrate the beauty of silence by communicating a calm and peaceful tone. Though both poets utilize alliteration to create auditory imagery, the impact and use of their imagery are diverse. In “Reapers,” Toomer’s alliteration of the “s” sound in the following lines “[b]lack reapers with the sound of steel on stones / Are sharpening scythes” mimics the high-pitched, screeching sound of steel scraping on stone, creating an auditory image that purposefully evokes a sense …show more content…

In “Reapers” Toomer utilizes juxtaposition and concrete diction to create visual imagery that conveys the lack of respect for black lives during the slavery era. In the second half of the poem, Toomer uses concrete diction to describe the blades of a mower killing a field mouse, noting the mouse “squealing” as it “bleeds” and writing “I see the blade, / Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade” (lines 6-8). This use of concrete diction creates a visual image of a suffering mouse, dying from its wounds as the blade of the machine that killed it continues on its set path. This image is juxtaposed with the first half of the poem which features the image of men of colour using their scythes as they reap the field, creating the visual image that like the mouse, these men could be killed and the steel of the blades would not pause for a moment after taking their lives (Toomer lines 1-4). Thus, Toomer’s use of visual imagery successfully communicates the lack of respect for black lives in the reaping fields during the era of slavery. In contrast, Prufer uses visual imagery to convey a dissimilar

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This setting affects the reader’s perception of this poem by using the cars’ hot metallic bodies and the full force of a hot, summer day to entice the reader to enter this steaming bygone era of cars and lust. The cars are symbolic of a black society that has been

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In my book there were a lot of conflict between the whites and blacks. The whites were plantation owners and the blacks were slaves. Throughout the book there were a lot of symbols but the most important symbol was the tractor. The tractor represented the blacks did on the plantation, the tractor was the primary tool that pushed the blacks off the land.

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Both Walt Whitman and Seamus Heaney have had a strong influence on Trethewey’s compositions (Davis). In the poem, “South” by Trethewey, she explains America as a ‘white space,’ similarly to the Walt Whitman’s views stance on the south. The use of this expression demonstrates the social hierarchy built within the south as a white supremacy era (Ibid). Not only has she been influenced by Whitman, but also by Heaney when writing this poem. After reading Holland’s “North,” she gained the idea of her poem “South” (Ibid).

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These wounds were no accident; these events were not done by mistake. These white laces that look like a set of deadly scars symbolize the slavery, discrimination, and segregation blacks have suffered through. These black sneakers represent all the events that divide blacks and whites. This simile builds the tremendous contrast found in the poem by reminding the audience of all the events that make blacks and whites two separate entities. Further in the poem the contrast is developed further through the use of intense imagery.

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The poem is about the struggles one man has with his family when he is trying to decide if he should move North to get away from the racism of the South. He talks about how the South has “blood on its mouth,” symbolizing its past with slavery and the way they have always treated African Americans. He says that the South is “beautiful, like a woman, seductive as a dark-eyed whore,” which means he is attracted to the South and he loves the comfort he feels there because it is his home. However, the South spits in his face and turns her back on him even though he loves it there, but he isn’t welcome because of his skin color. He thinks the North might be a “kinder mistress,” more pleasant and welcoming, even though racism is present in the North just as much as in the South.

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In Barbara Foley’s “‘In the Land of Cotton’: Economics and Violence in Jean Toomer’s ‘Cane’” she speaks of the “economic and social realities confronting rural and small-town Georgia blacks in the early 1920s” (Foley 181), which perfectly lines up with the timing of the poem being written and reason of the poem. Toomer felt a certain sense to talk about the parting soul of slavery leaving the African American community but why? Foley, in her article, states that “scholars read the nostalgic celebration of a vanishing peasant” (Foley 181), showing the disappearance of slavery that scholars and critics of that and this time wanted to happen, but Toomer, as opposed to: “

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