“The Thing”
The opening line describes the evidence left behind of the lynching that he is about to discover as “the thing” which he stumbled upon in the woods. The description of the entire future of a man snuffed out using such a term turns into a symbol of the wholesale dehumanization of the abominable act.
The Darkness
At one point near the end of the poem, the sun is described as dying, the is a “night wind” and darkness screams with witnesses rising. All this imagery combines to recall the moment during the crucifixion of Jesus when God turns His back and darkness hangs over the land during the day. The combined imagery situates the victim of the lynching as Christ-like sacrificial lamb who lynching from a tree recalls the crucifixion of Jesus on a wooden cross.
The Witnesses’ Belongings
Scattered around the site on the ground items left behind by those who witnesses the terrible murder. They include tell-tale objects painting a vivid portrait of the proceedings: extinguished cigars and cigarettes, peanut shells, a gin flask and lipstick. These are all symbols of a good time such as might be found littering the landscape after the close of a fair or carnival and point to the fact that the witnesses were far from horrified but were instead partying.
The Victim’s Belongings
While the flotsam and jetsam left behind by those who witnesses the event is evidence of their being there and their complicity in the evil which took place, the belongings of victim serve as evidence of his no longer being there or anywhere. A shoe is characterized as “vacant” along an “empty tie.” The language is intensely suggestive of what is absent rather and come to symbolize in their totality the absence of the victim in the lives of those who knew him but did not hate or fear him.
The Charred Stump
The stump of a sapling is black from the heat of a fire. The tree has also suffered broken limbs, burned leaves, and still retains the scorched remains of the rope used for hanging. It is too literally the hanging tree to qualify as mere symbol of that distinction, but with the description of its state as “pointing a blunt finger accusingly at the sky” it becomes a symbol of all the fingers of accusation pointed toward the perpetrators of lynches who escaped responsibility and never faced punishment.
