What is this story really about? State the subject matter, and articulate the central insight about this subject matter Toomer relays to the reader.
Why is the omen of the moon in this story at all?
Connect or distinguish the use of song/music in this story to its use in other stories?
Take the subject matter of colonialism in this story and write one sentence that voices a strong argument. Make sure your argument could be supported just using this story as your evidence.
Write about any idea that struck you while doing your reading.
Who is the narrator of this story? Is the narrator biased, and if so, in whose favor?
Do either or both of the men love Louisa? What evidence do you have for your viewpoint?
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In "Blood-Burning Moon," we see Louisa as a character that serves the story to illuminate the conflict between black and white. She becomes a vehicle for racial speculation - we see this as Bob Stone reflects on her as a "nigger gal" instead of just a "gal," when she is seen as tainted by Tom when he discovers she is sleeping with Stone, etc. Louisa remains largely a stranger in this story - even as we experience the third person explaining her point of view, she remains distant, with the only element of the story that affects her consciousness being the moon. I believe Toomer makes this choice consciously, and uses it to great advantage in this story. We never hear her speak unless it is in dialogue with one of the male characters.
ReplyDeleteThe song remains as ominous as the moon in the story - the repetition of the lyrics at the end of each section of this story creates a cyclical quality that lends reason and an even deeper tragedy to the death of Stone and Burwell. Regardless of the reasons behind these particular deaths, the deaths will continue to happen, as sure as the cycle of the moon. The narrator tells these events with little to no emotion, only observation - this also lends a quality on inevitability to the events in Toomer's "Blood-Burning Moon."
In terms of colonization in this text, I would argue that Louisa represents the land the two forces are trying to colonize. She is obviously connected to the land and nature from the moment of her introduction. She is “the color of oak leaves in fall” and her breasts are “like ripe acorns” (1274). Both men want to claim her. Tom is willing to attack the other men to defend his claim, stating “She's my gal” (1275). He's been part of her life (and according to his monologue, has loved her) since her childhood. Bob Stone's more recent claim is just as possessive, though with a far darker tone: “his family still owned the niggers, practically” (1277). Bob Stone wants to physically “claim” Louisa. He even fantasizes about raping her, “He saw Louisa bent over the hearth. He went in as a master should and took her” (1277) Stone repeatedly says, “His family had lost ground” (1277), which can mean both lost power and the more physical, literal loss of “property” (which is what previous law and cultural practice had designated African Americans and Africans). Both men fight over Louisa without real consideration for what she wants. She is torn with indecision—meeting Bob Stone or Tom was normal and she didn't need to make a choice to accept Tom's proposal or end her relationship with Bob. However, neither man shows concern for her opinion when they think about who will end up with her. Tom's stance is “Bob Stone. Better not be” (1275) while Bob's take is a self-confident, “No sir. No nigger had ever been with his girl. He'd like to see one try” (1277). Tom has taken possession of Louisa on the night of the story, and in that way is like the native population that resists colonization. They are in their own land, away from the “white” part of town. Bob is aggressive from the beginning, which leads to a fight that Tom wanted anyway. When Bob returns to his “homeland,” he inspires what the white men see as a retaliatory act. They return with superior technology (cars, shotguns, revolvers) and subdue Tom just as historically invading forces tended to use superior technology to subdue other native residents of the lands they intended to claim for themselves. Tom is burned alive, and Louisa and the other black men and women are still subject to the mob rule of the white men. They are still, as Bob Stone put it, “practically owned.” In a system that is neither fair nor kind, Louisa remains property, the native population is subdued, and the invading force, though it has suffered losses, has taken control.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the wall of text, and I hope it makes sense.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like the comment on the refrain in the story. It does add a cyclic quality to the text. Until I read your post, I had not connected that repetition with the moon.
I would like to discussion during the first hour the best practice to approach teaching freshmen such a politically and racially charged and metaphorically and historically condense short stroy as "Blood Buring Moon."
ReplyDeleteWrite about any idea that struck you while doing your reading.
ReplyDeleteI was reminded of the poem “Strange Fruit," written by a Abel Meerpool, a Jewish school teacher from the Bronx; he first published the poem in 1936 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine. Meerpool wrote it in response to the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, August 7, 1930. It was later recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939 as a blues/jazz song:
Strange Fruit
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
At its fundamental level, this is a story about what happens when two violent men love the same woman. Both men are competing for a limited resource in a zero-sum game. There is only one Louisa, and the men are unwilling to share her. Tom Burwell has a history of using violence to solve his problems: he tells Louisa that he has “already cut two niggers” (1276), meaning he's already knifed two men who laughed at his claim on Louisa, and the reader learns that Tom has “been on th gang three times fo cuttin men” (1277). Bob is also a violent man. He fantasizes about raping Louisa: “He went in as a master should and took her” (1277). He almost instantly attacks Tom when the two meet. When two violent and unreasonable men compete over the same woman, tragedy results.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the story isn't that simple at all. Louisa and Tom are black, and Bob is white. The reader cannot overlook the element of power inextricably linked to race in the story. For instance, if Bob had won the knife fight, he wouldn't have been lynched. The lynching in the story, and lynchings in the American South in general, occur specifically in retaliation against a black person wronging a white person.
The whole town calls Tom “Big Boy,” a name that speaks to both Tom's size and his position in a society where many white people addressed all black men derogatorily as “boy.” In one sense, it should be no surprise that Tom needs to prove himself and the sincerity of his love for Louisa. And it is no surprise that Tom expresses this sincerity perhaps the only way this “Big Boy” knows how: through violence, or at least the threat of violence. By contrast, Bob doesn't NEED to knife anyone because he doesn't have to express his power that way. However, Bob is filled with his own internal torments unique to his position in society: almost the entirety of page 1277 is devoted to Bob's back-and-forth internal dialogue, where he struggles with how powerful and in control he really is. This aspect of the story reminded me very strongly of George Orwell's essay “Shooting an Elephant.” “When the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys” (Orwell).
This story seems to be about two self absorbed men fancying themselves in love with the same woman, though of course it signifies deeper issues. Love is a relative term and here it seems to mean “possession”. In terms of Louisa’s authentic feelings, she could be in love with both of them, or rather desires them both. Considering Bob’s demeanor it can also be interpreted that Louisa dare not refuse his advances upon her, or is she using the whole “master” bit as an excuse because she deems herself in love with him too?
ReplyDeleteOverall, it is evident that all three characters are headed towards disaster- Tom, with his violent history and burning desire for Louisa without stopping to consider what he’s fighting for, nor does he consider the possibility that she could have genuine feelings for Bob. Bob on the other hand, is as violent and insolent to top it. Louisa is clearly asking for trouble in every possible way. She does not foresee the emotional complication of her reckless conduct or the possibility of risking the lives of both the men in her life including her own sanity. The fact that both men are hot headed couldn’t possibly have escaped her either. As I read I thought the moon signifies a premonition of an impending doom and an inevitable one, as stressed by the music in this story.
The omen of the full moon in this story is important because it's a symbol of fear. It's a symbol of the power of the white man had over the black man during the time of the Bloody South. As Lizzie said it "is full of the blood of southern lynching –a true American Black man’s death, the American way." But more than just absorbing the blood of it all. It has another name. It's the Hunter's Moon. "The Hunter's Moon is so named because plenty of moonlight is ideal for hunters shooting migrating birds." This was a time in history where black men (and women) were hunted in the south by the light of the full moon--the blood moon. You can't talk about this tragedy without mentioning the moon. This was light in which lynchings (and other atrocities) were committed. It was a light that signaled fear causing these women to sing: "Negro women improvised songs against its spell" (1274). It was the light in which the white men at the time chose to show there power over the black man. This "blood-burning moon" signified that men were dying.
ReplyDeleteBTW, PBS did a segment on the rise and fall of Jim Crow and the website has audios of personal narratives of survivors of that time. These could be very useful in class.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/narrative_butterfield.html
Lizzie and Kris make some very interesting points about what signifies the southern white mob--the moon imagery--so I'll speak to the imagery used to describe the mob instead. As in "Sonny's Blues," where the anonymous atrocity committed against Sonny's uncle is perhaps the historically updated version of the lynch mob, what is present in Toomer's tale is the anonymous swarming whiteness presented with the power and speed of an inevitable force of nature. The barbaric acts of the white swarm couldn't be farther from nature, however, which has spoken for itself in terms of sexual selection by casting out the much weaker (and less wise) male from the genetic pool. This idle mob swarms against any sign of resistance to its rapine whims, no matter how just, "like ants upon a forage" (1279). Indeed, there is something more behind the mindless hive activity, whose "pressure" and "momentum was too great..." and who Toomer treats, essentially, like a liquid, dividing and flowing with the mob, and that is the collective and unquestioning racist ideology that moves it. The "hundred mobs" and the "hundred yells" speaks to the centuries of barbarism perpetrated against African-Americans by their caucasian counterparts in the South and elsewhere. With these particular imagistic techniques, Toomer effectively conveys the weight and horror of mob activity.
ReplyDelete"Blood Burning Moon" reminded me of a present-day incarnation of American racism as portrayed on film, "American History X," starring Edward Norton. A few scenes in this picture convey the lasting effects of racist ideology taking root in a mob. I warn, however, that this film is quite violent and shocking -- certainly not for the faint of heart or stomach.
Connect or distinguish the use of song/music in this story to its use in other stories?
ReplyDeleteI think the use of music in this story is contrasted to the music in "Sonny's Blues." The use of the Jazz music in "Sonny's Blues" is used as a way to help oneself through the suffering that they are facing. It is an outlet for a positive sense whereas, The repetative "chants" in "blood" is used almost as a warning. Although, used as a coping method as well, the chants tend to foreshadow evil doing.
The more I've thought about this story, the more I keep finding irony in the way it is told. The initial introduction to Louisa: "Louisa sang as she came over the crest of the hill from the white folks' kitchen. Her skin was the color of oak leaves on young trees in fall. Her breasts, firm and up-pointed like ripe acorns. And her singing had the low murmur of winds in fig trees"(1274). This description makes Louisa out to be primitive, and her return from the white peoples' kitchen, which represents civilization. The mysticism and superstition throughout the story also helps to portray the black people of the story as primitive. In the end, it is the white people of the story who are uncivilized.
ReplyDelete