Optimism About the Future of Race Relations
The extraordinary thing about this poem is that it can present two completely different and oppositional themes depending on whether it is read sincerely or ironically. If the poem is read sincerely, it is expressing a theme that there is hope for the future of race relations in America society. In order to pursue this theme throughout analysis, a reader must take everything that is written at face value, but this is especially true of the final lines. “She’d be so proud she’d dance and sing / To see herself tonight” must be interpreted as the sincere thoughts of the mother. In her mind she sees dead daughter being proud of the manner in which she has been remembered in her grave at death. The poem thus ends on an optimistic note in which the daughter and the mother are happy about the ways in which white society have integrated into black society.
Pessimism About the Future of Race Relations
On the other hand, if those final words represent the thoughts of a narrator existing apart from the internal action it is more easily interpreted as pessimistic. The narrator is making an ironic commentary about how the grave has been prepared to the point that the sincerity of the optimistic theme transforms into irony. The dead girl can only be ironically happy and proud. The overall imagery of whiteness throughout the poem strongly indicates that white society has not so much positively integrated into black society as it has negatively intruded upon it.
Interpretation and Racism
The overarching theme of the poem that successfully integrates both the optimistic reading and the pessimistic reading is the significance and essential vitality of interpretation. While subjective interpretation leads to a great many literary works being open to a variety of readings, this poem is one of the few in which directly oppositional interpretations are possible. Within the narrative of the poem, this ability to interpret things from two completely different sides speaks to the concept of racism. Racism is itself, generally speaking, an opposition construct in which two different sides—white and black—can look at the very same incident and interpret them in two different ways.
