Strange fruit ( commentaire)
378 mots
2 pages
Strange fruit is a song performed most famously by Billes Holiday who released her first recordind in 1939 at Café Society in New York .It condemned American racism , particularly the lyching party of African Americans in the pas black people were slaves in the US.
The song is a metaphor to speak about a lyching party .it’s really horrible because the singer were words that are in conflict together.
For instance there is a stark contrast between the dead bodies hanging and the word “ breeze” or “swinging” that she uses and that have a positive connatation
For example : black bodies swinging in the southern breeze It’s an oxymoron a southern breeze is gentle .
It makes us think of light wind , gentle and soft during the summer.
Futhermore the metaphor of the fruit brings strangeness because generally the fruit is associated with brith life or love whereas in this song at dead of black prople.
Moreover at line 6 “pastoral scene of the gallantsouth”
It’s juxptoposition of cliches about the pleasant to live in gentle south :it shows the image of dead referring to the harsh reality of the black fate particulary obvious (line 5 to 8)
There is a metaphor for the bodies who have hanged after being tortured “ bulging” “ twisted” we don’t know by whom but we can suggested for instance white people or the civil war bu angry racists mobs of people inspired by the kuklux klan’s ideology.
In the poem B.H appeals to our senses.
The lyric conveys a macabre atmosphere .
When we read the poem,it feels s if we were seing the scene.
It’s ver efficient.
It feels as if we were witnessing a crime .
It looks horrible because we can see at line 4 to 5. it smeels like death because the death bodies is burning or smell it tastes disgusting “for the sun to rot the death bodies.
he overal impression is one of horror all the more so as everything is suggested: we gradually understand that the fruit refers to the bodies of black men who have been lynched. We