Poetry Analysis: Imagery in Jean Toomer's "Reapers"
Jean Toomer's poem, "Reapers" (1923) contains many darkly powerful images, physically and metaphorically, based largely (although not entirely) on the poem's repeated use of the word "black", in reference to both men doing harvesting work in the fields, and the beasts of burden that help them. Within this poem, Jean Toomer effectively employs repetitions of key words, phrases, and ideas, thus evoking within the reader feelings of both monotony and starkness, as the "Reapers" of the title go about their work. Toomer also creates, through the poem's images, a sense of unceasing mechanical motions (i.e., motions by human beings as well as by the sharp harvesting machinery itself), and equally mechanical, unfeeling scenes of death, such as when a field rat is chopped up by a mower drawn by black horses. The rhythmic, monotonous feeling of the poem is strongly reinforced not only by the fact that the poem has only one stanza, but also by Toomer's deliberate and skillful imagery that melds human labor; mechanical movement; and death into one. In this essay, I will analyze how Jean Toomer's imagery within "Reapers" contributes powerfully to this poem's overall effect. The poem "Reapers" (1923) reads as follows:
The poem begins with its main subjects, the "Black reapers" (line 1), i.e., the black men working in the fields, sometime either before or after the Civil War (the poem is not specific in this regard)-readying themselves for today's work, with their first act of the day being "sharpening scythes" (line 2). Thus the poem begins with images of both sharpness and monotony, a juxtaposition of seemingly disparate images that nonetheless persists throughout "Reapers." Next a mower pulled by black horses, indifferently slices cuts through "weeds and shade" (line 8), destroying a field rat in its midst. As the poem states, of this mechanical; unceasing, and unfeeling work: From the outset, then, Toomer's "Reapers" offers vivid imagery of black men ("Black reapers", line 1), apparently either slaves or sharecroppers in the rural American South, and "Black horses" (line 5), going about the rhythmic, methodical business of reaping a harvest in a field. According to Gibbons: death of the field rat embodies this change . . . Instead of working slowly and His belly close to ground. I see the blade,
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Approximate Word count = 1673
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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