Georgia Dusk Figurative Language

So what is it about these words that make them so moving and memorable? Perhaps it is the imagery created in all three. In Georgia Dusk, you can visualize the “crimson trickle”(Hughes 8), veiled “darkness”(Hughes 4), and the bleeding “sunset”(Hughes 14). But it is more than that. The words themselves evoke a specific feeling. The personification of the wind in the repetition of “cries”(Hughes 2) creates a dark foreboding that is continued with the slight foreshadow in the use of “pity”(Hughes 3). The simile used, comparing hatred and African American racism to scattered seeds (Hughes 12) that require nourishment of more hatred and implies an up rise, leaves the entire poem with a sense of dread for what is happening and yet to come. The
continued motif of the word ‘dusk’ suggests more future horrors. The word ‘dusk’ shapes one of Georgia Dusk’s extended metaphors. ‘Dusk’ indicates a time after the day has gone, but the night has not yet begun. It is also an implication of unrest, vulnerability, and endings. In Hughes’ poem, ‘dusk’ signifies danger and coming death. Another dangerous metaphor in Georgia Dusk, is the use of the word ‘sunset,’ referring, yet again, to endings and mortality. The first word I noticed was the word “Sometimes”(Hughes 1). It is a direct indication of how casually these deaths were considered in the 1930’s south, as though they were a natural and common occurrence, which they then were. The language and metaphor in Georgia Dusk directly parallels that of the jazz standard Strange Fruit. The usage of linguistics in Strange Fruit is also grim and foreboding.
The use of imagery terms such as “bulging”(Holiday 6) and “twisted”(Holiday 6) create a picture of complete horror. The juxtapositional way that line 8 (“...sudden smell of burning flesh”(Holiday)) is preceded by line 7 (“Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh”(Holiday)) just adds to the shock and abhorrence. It is very similar to the ironic way that the second verse, specifically line 5, sarcastically refers to the South in general, using words like ‘pastoral’ and ‘gallant,’ which are soon after followed by the aforementioned images. If you look even further, the word ‘magnolia,’ commonly associated with the South, could be a subtle hint at white supremacy. A large white flower, blossoming on a very large tree that can live upwards of 100 years, being distinctly compared to black, bitter, and rotting fruit which is afterwards neglected and left to the elements. The repeated motif in Strange Fruit applies to the word ‘fruit,’ unsurprisingly enough. The word ‘fruit’ is meant to dehumanize the African American victims of these horror and carry a metaphor of African American bodies lynched and hanging from trees. However, the metaphors do not stop there. The idea of a tree usually brings about meanings of life and family, the Tree of Life, Family Tree, bloodlines, and such, and yet, it is used in Strange Fruit to convey the exact opposite- a Tree of Death, if you will, killing off an entire race of people.
This is also paralleled in the imagery held within the song Summertime with an inclination of overcoming hardships, even if that means death.
Summertime evokes an easy and relaxed form of living that simply was not present for the African American people living in America at this time.
The line “... your daddy’s rich and yo’ mama’s good lookin’” (Gershwin 3) subtly echoes this unease. It’s as though the mother is trying to soothe her child with the message that everything will be alright; the father will use his wealth and status to protect the child and the mother can use her body as a form of protection as well. It isn’t until the next stanza (line 5-6) where the metaphor, again, turns even darker. “... yo’ gonna rise up singin’ then you’ll spread yo’ wings as you take the sky…” presents an image of overcoming, however, followed by an image of ascent commonly used to reference death and the journey into Heaven. But “til tha’ mornin’ there’s nothin’ can harm yo’ with daddy and mammy standin’ by” (Gershwin 6-8). It’s as though the parents of this child know the hardships that await, hope that they will end, but realize that the racism and slavery will most likely be the end, not only of themselves, but of their child as
well.
The horrors and atrocities befallen to African Americans in this country in the 1930’s and before, were unimaginable. The use of the African American Vernacular to address these issues and confront the ‘standard language’ puts some of the power back into the hands of the subordinate peoples. Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday, and George Gershwin used their voices to speak out against the hatred and abhorrence of the American people. This essay attempts to outline the direct parallel in Langston Hughes’ Georgia Dusk, Strange Fruit as done by Billie Holiday, and the song Summertime from the opera “Porgy and Bess” in both language and symbolic metaphor.