Personification In Strange Fruit

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“Strange Fruit” “Strange Fruit” is a poem that was written in 1937 by Abel Meeropol, who was inspired to write this poem when he looked at a picture of two teens, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, who were broken out of their jail cells, by a mob, and lynched. Meeropol "’was very disturbed at the continuation of racism in America, and seeing a photograph of a lynching sort of put him over the edge.’" (Npr.org) After reading the poem, I was mortified. The poem gives you a very graphic picture of the “fruit” hanging from the tree after the lynching. After reading the poem, I listened to Billie Holiday’s performance where she sang the poem. Her voice intensified it to a level that I didn’t know was reachable. “Strange Fruit” is overall, a frightening, …show more content…

For example, he says “Then the sudden smell of burnin' flesh” (Meeropol), which gives fruit the human-like quality of flesh. Another example of personification in the poem “Strange Fruit” is when Meeropol says “The bulgin' eyes and the twisted mouth”(Meeropol), which gives the fruit hanging from the tree the human qualities of eyes and a mouth, which fruit does not have. Another literary device that is used by the author is imagery, which is visually descriptive or figurative language. An example from the poem that includes imagery is, “Blood on the leaves and blood at the root”(Meeropol). This is quote uses imagery when it gives such descriptive details of the “fruit”, with blood on the leaves, meaning the bodies of the two teens, and at the root, meaning the head of the two teens’ bodies. The last literary device used in “Strange Fruit” is juxtaposition, or the placement of two or more things side by side, oftentimes in order to bring out their differences. Meeropol uses this when he says,“Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees”(Meeropol). This is juxtaposition because the author says “black bodies”, directly talking about humans, then he says, “fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees” referring to the humans as fruit …show more content…

“Strange fruit” is a well written, but disturbing poem that was inspired by a photograph of two teenagers who were lynched. The poem’s disturbing like tone expresses a message, that we can learn from today, which is that racism should not be accepted today, and should no longer exist. Meeropol is successful in delivering this message by giving such a graphic, and disturbing tone to the poem that it delivers a scary picture into the reader’s mind, and that picture shows that racism and lynching should not be tolerated in the world today. In my opinion, this poem is very significant in this world today, because, sadly, racism still exists, and it teaches us that it

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