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Answer:
Strange Fruit” is a harrowing poem about people's capacity for hatred and violence. The poem specifically showcases the horrors of lynching in the American South (which reached a peak towards the end of the 19th century and early 20th century). Lynching was a form of extrajudicial (that is, outside of the regular law) killing in which black people were brutally tortured and/or murdered by mobs of white people, which often hung their victims from tree branches. Through an extended metaphor in which black victims’ bodies are presented as the “strange fruit” dangling from “Southern trees,” the poem brings the horrors of racism to vivid and uncomfortable life, insisting that such violence is utterly grotesque and inhumane.
The poem contrasts something normally natural and full of life with the grim realities of lynching. The “strange[ness]” of the fruit these trees bear highlights the way that racism dehumanizes its victims, and how it makes the environment itself terrifying and inhospitable. The bodies don't belong on the trees, but have been put there by forces of hate.
The poem notably contrasts this “strange fruit” with what would normally be pleasant natural imagery—the trees themselves, the “scent of magnolias,” the sun and the wind, the “southern breeze.” These images are intended to build a picture of the “gallant south,” a place of so-called refinement, civility, and manners. Gallantry relates to bravery, charm, and chivalrous behavior—qualities that are all clearly lacking here. Racism is not just hateful, then, but totally hypocritical and antithetical to the South's purported values. The poem thus forcefully argues that no society can call itself civil and also be capable of acts like lynching; the South can’t be an idyllic “pastoral” place if black people’s corpses swing in the breeze. According to the poem, notions of progress and civilization are nothing but hollow lies if such racism is allowed to thrive.
And, importantly, this racist hatred affects the entire tree—which becomes covered in blood “on the leaves” and “at the root.” Just as a tree must suck up water from the ground and spread it all the way through its branches, the poem implies that the "blood" shed by racism works its way through humanity. Lynching is thus a failure of humanity that results in the rotting of the human family tree.
The poem then concludes with the shocking imagery of crows plucking at the corpses’ flesh, the sun rotting the neglected bodies of the victims, and the branches finally giving way and dropping the victims' bodies to the ground. The earth itself is thus corrupted by this “strange and bitter crop.” Death and hatred—through the fallen body—will be reabsorbed into the soil, and form part of the organic process that brings with it the next cycle of crops. American racism, the poem ultimately implies, is a poison that does nothing but spread yet more violence and hatred
The imagery in Strange Fruit explore systemic racism in the United States as it symbolizes brutality and racism.
What is imagery?
It should be noted that imagery simply means the use of words to paint pictures in the mind of a reader.
In this case, the imagery in Strange Fruit explore systemic racism in the United States as it symbolizes brutality and racism.
Learn more about imagery on:
https://brainly.com/question/25938417
