Blood+Burning+Moon

 ** "[|Blood Burning Moon]" by [|Jean Toomer] Genesis **

**Paragraph from __Cane; Blood-Burning Moon:__** Louisa sang as she came over the crest of the hill from the white folks’ kitchen. Her skin was the [|color of oak leaves on young trees in fall]. Her breasts, firm and up-pointed like [|ripe acorns]. And her singing had the low murmur of winds in fig trees. Bob Stone, younger son of the people she worked for, loved her. By the way the world reckons things, he had won her. By measure of that warm glow which came into her mind at thought of him, he had won her. Tom Burwell, whom the whole town called Big Boy, also loved her. But working in the fields all day, and far away from her, gave him no chance to show it. Though often enough of evenings he had tried to. Somehow, he never got along. Strong as he was with hands upon the ax or plow, he found it difficult to hold her. Or so he thought. But the fact was that he held her to factory town more firmly than the thought for. His black balanced, and pulled against, the white of Stone, when she thought of them. And her mind was vaguely upon them as she came over the crest of the hill, coming from the white folks’ kitchen. As she sang softly at the evil face of the full moon. (Toomer 28)

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//Blood-Burning Moon // is a vignette from __Cane__, a book written by Jean Toomer during the [|Harlem Renaissance]. This book was published in 1923 and became an important work of High Modernism. This particular chapter is the only story in the three parts, that the book is divided in, that does no have a woman’s name as its title. //Blood-Burning Moon// really sets Toomer’s theme of “African-American identity and his setting of rural Southern life during segregation”.
 * Introduction: **



Since the book is written during a [|segregation] period, Jean Toomer makes a lot of reference about it throughout this chapter. Louisa, the gal white Bob Stone and black Tom Burwell love, is a light-skinned African American woman. Toomer points out how they each expressed their love for Louisa. Bob Stone does not see that she is an African American because he loves her. When he starts fighting for her with a black man, he begins to think how he shouldn’t be even fighting with a black man. “His mind became consciously a white man’s”. (31) Because Tom Burwell is black, Stone thinks he should get everything he wants. Not only does he think as a white man, but it gets to the point to where his love for Louisa is not enough for sometimes he would go in where she was like a master would and take her. Tom Burwell’s love for her was rough even though he didn’t want it to. His working in the fields and being away from her did not show how much he loved her. But because she was black and he loved her, Burwell believed no other guy could take her, including a white man. It’s funny how if this Louisa character would have been a white person, Tom Burwell would have probably given her up to Bob Stone. In this chapter, Toomer keeps mentioning the phrases: Red nigger moon. Sinner! Blood-burning moon. Sinner! Come out that fact’ry door. (29) Toomer mentions the moon being an evil omen and Louisa and other women would always sing to it. When I think of the moon, I think of it having a [|glowing color] and something impossible to grasp no matter in what times. I think the moon is making reference to women alike and I think the “nigger” part of the moon proves my point by saying that it does not matter if the woman is black or white, if someone loved her in those times that was from a different race, he could take her away and only cause bloody trouble. Women alike are one of things that made an exception in the law of [|segregation]. I think back then they knew this happened so this [|slavery song], which I imagine it is, was like an omen saying to be careful who you meddled with because it could lead to trouble. The people singing this phrase would just be a reminder. [|If you would like have have more of an idea of how slavery went about, click on this.]
 * Analysis: **

Bibliography: Jean Toomer. Cane: Blood-Burning Moon. Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1923. [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []