Juxtaposition In Strange Fruit

“One of Billie Holiday's most iconic songs is "Strange Fruit," a haunting protest against the inhumanity of racism” (Blair ). “Strange Fruit” was written by Abel Meeropol and published in 1937. Billie Holiday then went to to sing “Strange Fruits” in 1939, it quickly became one of her most requested songs. Abel Meeropol had once witnessed seeing a photograph of a lynching, aghast by what he had just seen, he decided to compose a poem about it. My overall response to the poem was stupefied because of how people could carry on lynching other humans for their race. This poem conveys that racism can be taken into extremes. In the poem “Strange Fruit” Abel writes about dead bodies hanging on the southern trees. Writing, how the bodies will leave there for nature to come and destroy it, the people hanging on the trees did not have a

An example for juxtaposition would be when they compare the fruit of the tree with a dead body. “Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees” (Meeropol). The bodies are compared to the fruit because of how they are hanging in the trees and maybe because of how many people are hanging from them too. My second example of juxtaposition would be when they compare the beautiful sites in the South to the gruesome scene of the dead body hanging from the tree. “Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth” (Meeropol). In the South, you would be able to see beautiful sites; however, there are gruesome parts in the South where they hang people because of their race. My third example of juxtaposition would be when they compare the pleasant scent magnolia to the scent of burning flesh. “Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, And the sudden smell of burning flesh” (Meeropol). A magnolia’s scent would be described as sweet and fresh; however, the scent of burning flesh could be described as