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Blood-Burning Moon | Introduction

The short story ‘‘Blood-Burning Moon’’ is part of Jean Toomer’s book Cane, which was first published in 1923. The book is divided into three parts: the first two contain short stories and poetry, while the third part consists of a loosely-structured play that is sometimes considered a short story. All the stories in this first section take place in the rural South, usually with an African-American woman as the focus. For the most part, they take place at dusk and outdoors, often in the cane fields. ‘‘Blood- Burning Moon’’ is the last story in this part and, interestingly, it is the only one that does not have a woman’s name as its title.

‘‘Blood-Burning Moon’’ is exemplary of Toomer’s theme of African-American identity and his setting of rural Southern life during segregation. It tells the story of the conflict between Bob Stone, a white man, and Tom Burwell, an African American, who are rivals for the affection of Louisa, a light-skinned African-American woman. During the course of one evening, each man learns of the other’s relationship with Louisa. After Bob challenges Tom to a knife fight in front of Louisa, Tom slashes the throat of the white man. Bob is able to stumble back to the white part of town and tell the townfolk who knifed him. A mob of white men immediately lynch Tom by tying him to a stake and burning him.

Blood-Burning Moon Summary

The story opens with a description of the full moon rising as the women of the poor, African-American part of town—‘‘factory town’’—sing songs against its evil spell. Louisa, a black woman, is walking home from her job as a domestic servant for a white family, the Stones. She, too, sings as she thinks about Bob Stone, the younger son of her employers, with whom she has a clandestine relationship, and about Tom Burwell, a black man who works in the fields and has been showing an interest in her. The thought of the two men cause a ‘‘strange stir’’ within her, and she tries vaguely to determine which of the men is the cause of her agitation. Her song becomes ‘‘agitant and restless.’’ Animals sense her agitation, and dogs begin to bark and yowl while chickens cackle and roosters crow. Louisa finally arrives home and sits down on the front step. The moon moves towards a ‘‘thick cloud-bank which soon would hide it.’’ This section ends with the refrain of a song that is the source of the story’s title and will be repeated twice more:

Red nigger moon. Sinner! Blood-burning moon. Sinner! Come out that fact’ry door.

At the edge of the forest outside the factory town, a group of African-American men, including Tom, sit around the ‘‘glowing stove’’ boiling cane and listening to Old David Georgia tell tales. Tom becomes irate when someone suggests that Louisa received a gift of silk stockings... » Complete Blood-Burning Moon Summary