Conflict Assignment
Text: Strange Fruit, Abel Meeropol (Poem)
Abel Meeropol’s ‘Strange Fruit’ uses an extended metaphor of fruit representing lynched African Americans during the conflict of systemic racism between them and European Americans in the 1800s to 1900s. It contrasts the freedom taken for granted by Europeans, with the agonising horror African Americans experienced and explores relationships between morality and conflict. Conflict occurs when a lack of moral reasoning is present to consider motivations and effects of one’s actions. Meeropol successfully implies the fearful experiences of African Americans are ongoing as moral redress is ignored, identical to 2022. In the absence of moral reasoning and accountability, conflict continues because injustice must be addressed. So, until that occurs, conflict will be inescapable because immorality dominates.
Meeropol effectively illustrates, African Americans' frightening experiences, as well as the battle to redress these in the absence of moral necessity, are continuous. In “Pastoral scene of the gallant south” and “The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth”, bitterly ironic symbolism of a ‘pastoral scene’ undermines typical expectations associated with a peaceful setting. The sibilance of ‘pastoral scene’ and long vowel sounds of ‘gallant south’ auditorily create a continuous tone, a lingering effect, structuring moods of sorrow for readers, reinforcing Meeropol’s idea that conflict is an ongoing condition, and we too experience this. Meeropol’s disturbing imagery of lynched victims in, “Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck” and “For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop” employs cacophony and understatement to emphasise the frequent horror of lynching. It effectively blends these bodies, these fruits, into their surroundings. This further suggests that this was an ordinary custom, which we know was the case in the contemporary context of systemic racism and the KKK. Without accepting the immorality of such customs, it was “difficult” for certain Europeans who sought to terminate these, to prevent such behaviour. Iambic rhythms in “Blood on the leaves and blood at the root” and “Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees” symbolise seemingly natural, almost organic qualities of these murders. Lynching did not just happen often, but it occurred so frequently, it seemingly flowed alongside the natural order of the world. Like Blake’s ‘A Poison Tree’, evil, or immorality, creates poisoned choices and strange fruits. Meeropol seems to implore his audience to change their customs before it is too late.
