Fire in a Canebrake Essays -- Literary Analysis, Laura Wexler

In her Fire in a Canebrake, Laura Wexler describes an important event in mid-twentieth century American race relations, persistent ago relegated to the clo perplex of American consciousness. In so doing, Wexler not still skillfully describes the eventthe Moores Ford lynching of 1946 exclusively incorporates it into our understanding of the grant world and past by retaining the complexities of doubt and deception that surrounded the event when it occurred, and which still confound it in historical records. By skillfully navigating these currents of deceit, too, Wexler is not only able to portray them to the reader in full form, but also historicize this muddled record in the context of certain larger historical truths. In this fashion, and by refusing to cede to a desire for closure by drawing easy but inherently flawed conclusions regarding the individuals directly responsible for the 1946 lynching, Wexler demonstrates that she is more raise in a larger historical picture than th e single event to which she dedicates her text. And, in so doing, she rebukes the doubts of those who question the importance of bringing up the lynching, lending the right way motivation and purpose to her writing that sustains her narrative, and the consultations attention to it.This motivation and purpose are most evident in the quality of Wexlers writing, do smashing by her painstaking awareness throughout the text of, firstly, such fundamental things as setting and the introduction of characters, and, secondly, the overarching threads of, for instance, national and state politics, which set the larger stage for the story. In her text, Wexler briefly mentions a prominent figure in the NAACP, Walter White, noting his biting statements regarding the lynching a ... ...lusionsnot only in regards to who the lynchers were, but also in regards to the identities of the victims (230), and, worst of all, whether or not the issues central to the Moores Ford lynching have been settled, and are past. In these senses, conclusiveness about these issues encourages falseness, precludes justice, and makes the audience let go of things that ought not to be let goand this, short of the lynching itself, is one of the greatest possible wrongs (244). It is by refusing to conclude, then, that Laura Wexler achieves the greatest success of her outstanding narrative, and is able to successfully navigates the lies and deception of a muddled historical event by adeptly presenting them in the context of larger historical truths. Work CitedWexler, Laura. 2003. Fire in a Canebrake The Last Mass Lynching in America. Scribner 2004. Print