What Does Strange Fruit Symbolize

“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated”- Maya Angelou

Racial discrimination is shown through a variety of texts including I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and Still I Rise written by Maya Angelou, Strange Fruit written by Abel Meeropol and the film The Rabbit Proof Fence directed by Phillip Noyce. I know why the caged bird sings uses symbolism to show racism. The white people are shown to be more superior than the blacks. Still I Rise shows an immense amount of confidence trying to overcome racism. Strange Fruit is about how the black people were lynched because the white people thought they were strange.

In the film The Rabbit Proof Fence the white people tried to breed out the black because they believed they were abnormal.

Meeropol uses metaphoric imagery to create the idea of lynching being wrong, the quote “Strange fruit hanging from poplar trees”. Strange fruit symbolises how the whites thought the blacks are abnormal, strange. Meeropol was not affected by lynching but he was merely disturbed by it. He was shown an image of white people celebrating the death of two black men that were hanging from a tree. He wanted the readers to feel disturbed by this. Meeropol writes ‘rain’, ‘wind,’, ‘sun’, and ‘drop’ these four words represents all the seasons and indicates that African Americans being lynched is an ongoing trend all year long. Meeropol tries to communicate the idea that white people resented the blacks. Meeropol saw lynching as an act of injustice and tried to confront the readers with this awful imagery. In the quote “Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh, The the sudden smell of burning flesh” Meeropol contrasted natural beauty with human cruelty. The same comparison is made between “sweet and fresh” a scent associated with a beautiful summer day and “burning flesh” a scent not many people would find pleasant. I know why the Caged Bird Sings and Strange Fruit both communicate the idea of racial discrimination. Both poems show that the blacks have no say in what's going to happen. In the poem Strange Fruit the blacks are being lynched for ridiculous reasons such as not calling an

Angelou wrote this poem in first person she uses words such as ‘you’, ‘me’ and ‘I’. In the quote “You may shoot me with your word, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise”. Angelou uses repetition to emphasis the word ‘you’, she wants the audience to think deeply about how racial discrimination has affected her, and want the readers to realise in the end she will keep fighting for equality. These ideas are important to her because she believes everyone deserves equality. Racism is seen in the poem through the line ”I am the dream and hope of the slave” This shows that she wants to see an end to racism, that blacks get treated the same as whites. Maya Angelou feels strongly about standing up against racism. We see this in the line “Still I’ll rise, I’ll rise, I’ll rise” the repetition of this helps the audience understand she still has hope, “Just like moons and like suns” she will continue to rise. The authors of the two poems Still I Rise and Strange Fruit both have written this with hope that they can put racial discrimination to a