27 pages • 54 minutes read
Arna BontempsA Summer Tragedy
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1931A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Arna Bontemps
Arna Bontemps was born into a Louisiana Creole family in Alexandria, Louisiana, in 1902. When he was three years old, his family left Louisiana for Los Angeles, California, as part of the Great Migration, which was a movement of Black people out of the South to other areas of the country in an attempt to escape racial discrimination and poor economic opportunities. Bontemps moved to New York City in 1924 for a teaching position and quickly became a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, befriending other well-known writers such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Weldon Johnson. Bontemps published his first poems that same year in the literary magazines Crisis and Opportunity. In 1931, he published his first novel, God Sends Sunday. After earning a master’s degree in library science from the University of Chicago, Bontemps held a position as a librarian at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, while continuing his writing career.
Although Bontemps was raised primarily in California, he maintained strong ties to his home state of Louisiana and to Southern Black culture. While his father encouraged him to assimilate into the white mainstream culture of California, Bontemps was deeply inspired by his grand-uncle Joe Ward, also known as “Uncle Buddy,” who educated him in traditional Black folk material. In his 1973 collection The Old South, Bontemps observed the contradictions in the attitudes toward Southern Black culture presented by his father and his grand-uncle, stating that “one group advocates embracing the richness of folk heritage; their opposites demand a clean break with the past and all it represents” (“Bontemps, Arna 1902-1973.” Encyclopedia.com, 2018). Throughout his works, Bontemps chose to embrace the richness of his Southern Black culture and heritage. For instance, there are references to his home state of Louisiana in “A Summer Tragedy” when Jeff Patton reflects on his youthful days in New Orleans. Furthermore, Bontemps demonstrates his commitment to the richness of Southern Black culture in his literary works, including “A Summer Tragedy,” by recreating Southern Black dialect in the dialogue between Jeff and Jennie Patton. While “A Summer Tragedy” does focus on the economic and physical burden of the share farming system, Bontemps nonetheless also offers a portrait of the complex lives of Black Southerners.
Historical Context: The Sharecropping System
Sharecropping, also known as share farming, is an agricultural model that was popular in the South from the 1870s through the 1940s. Sharecropping is a farming system in which families rent small plots of land from a landowner in return for a portion of their crop, which is given to the landowner at the end of each year. Following the devastation and upheaval of the Civil War, many freed Black people found themselves without land or money and were ultimately forced to continue working for white landowners. Sharecropping eventually became the standard labor model for farming in the South, providing both poor white people and freed Black people the opportunity to earn a living. However, sharecropping agreements between laborers and landowners were often very harsh and exploitative.
Many sharecroppers found themselves deep in debt to landowners for a variety of reasons. The costs of land, farming supplies, and housing were all deducted from the sharecroppers’ portion of the yearly harvest. In addition, landowners were known to charge extremely high interest rates. This system severely restricted any hope of improving the sharecroppers’ economic situation and often pushed them further into poverty. “A Summer Tragedy” directly explores the harsh conditions of this system through the deaths by suicide of Jeff and Jennie Patton. Although Jeff finds a sense of pride in his farming, he and Jennie recognize the impossible situation that they find themselves in. When they discuss their plan, Jeff reflects that they will never be able to improve their current economic situation: “We still gonna be in debt to old man Stevenson when he gets through couting up agin us” (353). Bontemps’s story reflects the immense burden shouldered by sharecroppers by demonstrating the lengths to which one couple is driven by poor health in old age and irreconcilable farming debt.
