The reader can imagine fruit swinging in a warm southern breeze, and that is a natural and beautiful image. The use of the term “southern breeze” and the metaphor of the bodies as “fruit” allows for the juxtaposition of something very beautiful with something entirely grotesque. Now, the reader or listener can imagine the bodies swinging from the trees like fruit. This line also creates a grotesque image reader will not easily forget. Whereas it is natural for the fruit to hang from trees, it is inhumane to hang bodies from trees. To refer to the bodies as “strange fruit” allows the readers to grasp the sense of injustice. With these lines, the speaker subtly reveals how very unnatural a sight it is to see. In the Southern part of the united states, black people have been killed and can be seen hanging from blood-spattered trees. This creates the setting and also reveals the event. These lines are highly important to the rest of the poem because they reveal two things: first, that the blood is from “black bodies” and second, that they are hanging from trees in the South. Whatever has happened, the speaker has not yet fully revealed, but it has left so much blood that there is blood on the leaves of a tree, and also at the root. In lines 1-4, of the poem, the writer creates an image the reader cannot easily forget. Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. The natural extremities mentioned here can be treated as metaphors too. In this stanza, the poet makes use of metonymy for referring to the summer and winter season. In the last stanza, there is a use of anaphora in the second and third lines. From this section of the poem, Abel Meeropol uses irony in most of the cases. In the next stanza, “gallant South” is a personal metaphor. “Leaves” and “roots” of the strange tree refer to the bloodstained hands of the white Americans and their vengeful heart respectively. In this line, “Blood on the leaves and blood at the root”, there are two metaphors.
It refers to black people either dead or alive. The “strange fruit” is another metaphor in this poem. On another hand, the tree represents “hatred towards black people”. Firstly, it depicts white people living in southern America. In ‘Strange Fruit’ by Abel Meeropol, “Southern trees” is a metaphor. Clearly, it reflects the mood and tone of the poem. The stress on the syllables at specific instances and the sound coming out in this process somehow seem satirical and ironic. In the following stanzas, the rhyming pattern of the poem creates a mechanical kind of sound. The lack of rhythm in the first stanza illustrates the “strangeness” of the scene, the poet sees. The compactness of the lines and the shortness of the structure makes the poet’s argument forceful. Likewise in the third stanza, “pluck” and “suck”, “drop” and “crop” rhyme together. In the second stanza, “South” rhymes with “mouth”, “fresh” and “flesh” rhyme altogether. Likewise “breeze” and “trees” rhyme in the following lines. In the first stanza, “fruit” in the first line rhymes with the “root” in the second line. The poem has a perfect rhyme and the mentioned rhyme scheme runs throughout the poem.
‘Strange Fruit’ by Abel Meeropol contains three stanzas. You can listen to the song by Billie Holiday here. The unending atrocities on black people throughout the year get reflected in the concluding section of the poem.
Meeropol creates a stark contrast between the superficial beauty of American culture and the rotting inside fused with bitterness and ruthlessness in the second stanza. In the pastoral landscape of southern America, the rotting bodies create a shocking sensation in the poet’s mind. The poet can see the “black body”, a reference to the Afro-Americans, swinging on the tree. The symbolic tree has blood on the leaves and in its root. The poet presents an image of a tree that bears strange fruit. The tragic effect gets embodiment in the poem by the use of Meeropol’s bitter irony. ‘Strange Fruit’ by Abel Meeropol is a poem on the genocide of black people in America. ‘ Strange Fruit‘ by Abel Meeropol depicts the heinous killing of black people in America by using the metaphor of a fruit.
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