Midnight Without a Moon

Jet serves as a motif in Midnight Without a Moon. Characteristic of novels with a first-person narrator, information provided to the reader is limited by the scope of Rose’s experience and exposure. Jet is Rose and Hallelujah’s window into the world of Black American culture on a national scale, a source for information and perspectives not available to them in their insular, rural, and restrictive Mississippi community. As Rose and Hallelujah peruse issues of Jet, the reader is granted the opportunity to examine the discrepancies between their own experiences and the way that other Black people live in other parts of the nation. After Emmett is murdered, Jet’s coverage impresses upon them the significance of their state as a battle ground for civil rights and empowers them to see themselves as potential instruments for change. Though she always looks forward to reading Jet, Rose is often discouraged by the prevalence of lighter-skinned Black women as examples of ideal beauty, as these images reinforce many of the colorist prejudices she has internalized. Linda Williams Jackson draws upon direct examples from the Jet Magazine Archives in her descriptions of the articles Rose and Hallelujah read.

The black strap of terror is a strip of leather used by Ma Pearl to lash her grandchildren when she believes they have been disobedient or insubordinate. Rose references this weapon throughout the novel; it looms in her mind as a deterrent as she navigates around her grandmother’s moods and tries to predict her reactions. Ma Pearl does not implement the black strap until the end of the novel, when she confronts Queen about her pregnancy and beats her granddaughter with ferocity despite Queen’s sobbing and pleading. The black strap symbolizes Ma Pearl’s wrath and the power she wields over her grandchildren. It also serves to continue the generational trauma Rose’s family has experienced, as Ma Pearl perpetuates the violence that her parents would have known as enslaved people.