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.
Themes
Desperation and Hopelessness
The primary challenge faced by Jeff and Jennie Patton in “A Summer Tragedy” is their lack of options for improving their lives and current circumstances. Their physical appearances reveal the Toll of Poverty and failing health. Jeff has lost all of his teeth. He also experienced a stroke that left him struggling to walk and to use his hands, which makes it increasingly difficult for him to farm and support the family. Jennie’s appearance also reinforces her weakness and frailty; she is described as “scrawny and gnarled as a string bean” (349) and “as thin, as sharp and bony, as a starved bird” (355). In addition to her small, frail stature, Jennie also has blindness and uses a cane to feel her way around the house. In addition to worrying about his ability to keep farming, Jeff realizes that Jennie will not be able to fully care for him in the event of any future health concerns. He worries that another stroke would leave him bedridden, and “with a frail blind woman to look after him, he would be worse off than if he were dead” (356).
Jeff and Jennie’s failing health is directly tied to their economic insecurity and lack of control over their circumstances. As a share farmer, the meager living that Jeff makes for himself and Jennie relies on his ability to farm. However, the share farming system allows the landowners to exploit their farmers, making it impossible for them to free themselves from the debt that they accumulate. Jeff and Jennie are unable to pay back the debts that they owe to the landowner, Major Stevenson. When Jennie asks Jeff how many bales of cotton they produced this year, he insists that no amount of cotton bales will get them out of debt: “If we get much or if we get little, we still gonna be in debt to old man Stevenson when he gets through counting up agin us. It’s took us a long time to learn that” (353). As Jeff suggests, Major Stevenson intentionally exploits them, and they will never succeed in becoming economically independent.
Ultimately, Jeff and Jennie find themselves stuck in an impossible position. Due to their declining health, they are unable to maintain their portion of Major Stevenson’s farm. However, they are so buried under debt that they will be completely unable to support themselves if they cannot maintain the farm. They have no options for gaining control over their lives, leaving them desperate, hopeless, and unable to improve their circumstances in any meaningful way. Jeff acknowledges that they are alone in the world and have few prospects: “They ain’t nothin’ else for us now – it’s the bes’ thing” (354). For Jeff and Jennie, death represents one last chance to take control over their increasingly hopeless circumstances.
The Confines of Masculinity
Jeff Patton experiences several moments of doubt about his plans to die by suicide with his wife, but he is unable to express his feelings to her. Jeff conforms to traditional notions of masculinity that value bravery and strength. He takes pride in his work ethic and ability to withstand years of hard labor as a share farmer. Although he recognizes that the deaths of many of his peers were most likely the result of the backbreaking labor they endured, he feels no sympathy for them: “He had always been strong, and he had been taught to have no patience with weakness in men” (352). Jeff’s brave façade is contrasted by his wife, who is not expected to bottle up her emotions. As they drive toward the river, she is overcome with grief and begins to cry because “she had never learned to suppress a genuine sob” (354).
Jeff and Jennie’s preparations to die by suicide reinforce the limitations that accompany traditional notions of masculinity. Jeff wavers between a sense of confidence in their plan and sheer terror. As he prepares to take the car around to the front of the house for Jennie, he considers their pact: “Fear came into his eyes; excitement took his breath” (350). Although Jennie consistently presses Jeff to admit that he is scared, he refuses to acknowledge any of his fears. He finds himself nearly overcome with emotion when Jennie eventually admits her own doubts about their plan: “Jeff’s voice choked; his eyes blurred. He was terrified to hear Jennie say the thing that had been in his mind all morning” (354). Jeff repeatedly finds himself unable to fully admit his own fears about their plan; rather than confiding in his wife, he strives to keep his emotions bottled up.
It is not until they are approaching a slope toward the river that Jeff is finally able to admit his fears to Jennie. He feels overcome with emotion at this point; as Jennie reassures him that they must be brave, Jeff finds his thoughts swimming through his mind “foolishly, hysterically, like little blind fish in a pool within a dense cave” (355). His voice breaks “pitifully” as he finally tells her that he cannot go through with it. At this point, however, Jennie has already accepted their fate— she doesn’t “hear Jeff’s voice shouting in her ear” (355). Ultimately, Jeff is left to comfort himself at the very end. While he might have found some comfort in confiding his fears to his wife, he is constricted by gendered expectations.
The Toll of Poverty
Jeff and Jennie’s decision to die at the end of the story reflects the deep toll that poverty takes on people both physically and mentally. Share farming was often deeply exploitative of the farmers, with many share farmers unable to pay back their debts and become economically independent. This meant that most of them lived in poverty. Jeff and Jennie’s physical appearances reflect the lasting effects of this deprivation. Jennie has a “wasted, dead-leaf appearance” (349) and is even compared to a “starved bird” due to her small, frail stature. Jeff similarly demonstrates the physical deterioration that accompanies a life of poverty. After years of physically demanding farm work, Jeff moves slowly and experiences a variety of aches and pains. His clothing similarly reflects the wear and tear of a difficult life. He dresses himself in his swallowtail coat, although it is “as full of holes as the overalls in which he worked on week days” (349). Jeff spends his days working on the farm, meaning that, other than the occasional family wedding, “fancy clothes do nothing but adorn the wall of the big room and feed the moths” (349).
Although the physical toll of living in poverty is immense, Jeff also finds himself experiencing its mental toll. As he prepares to drive the car into the river, he thinks back to his younger self traveling to New Orleans with a “gay young crowd, boys with candy-striped shirts and rouged-brown girls in noisy silks” (355). This memory represents his last bit of youthful joy, as he notes that his entire life since then has revolved around the farm at Greenbrier Plantation. In particular, Jeff reflects on the monotony that accompanies years of unending labor: “Since then there had been no time; the years had fallen on him like waves” (356). In addition to their physical toll, these years of labor have had an effect on Jeff’s mental faculties. He finds that his memory is failing, and he often talks to himself.
The ultimate toll of living in poverty is reflected in Jeff’s attitude toward his failing health. His limited mobility, which was caused by a stroke, will eventually make it impossible to continue farming. Given their lack of financial resources, Jeff acknowledges that another stroke will leave him “helpless, like a baby” (354). He knows that Jennie, a “frail blind woman” (356), will be forced to look after him in the event of another stroke. Jeff notes that such a circumstance would leave him “worse off than if he were dead” (356). The story emphasizes the destruction wrought by poverty by presenting Jeff and Jennie’s view that they are better off dead than continuing to live in increasing poverty from which they have no hope of escape.
