Becky never comes out of her house again. She makes herself so invisible, many people believe she may be dead. Then, one Sunday when "There was no wind. The autumn sun, the bell from Ebenezer Church, listless and heavy. Even the pines were stale, sticky..." (p. 8), Becky's house falls down on her. The house is a symbol of her consciousness, alienated and alone, possibly self-hating, and she dies from its complete collapse. The strength of the black people is beautiful too. "Carma," for example, "in overalls, and strong as any man, stands behind the old brown mule, diving the wagon home...the sun which has been slanting over her shoulder, shoots primitive rockets into her mangrove-gloomed, yellow flower face" (p. 12). Another example of beauty can be found in Fern's stoic bearing of sadness, her withdrawal into an inner world that cannot be touched by any man, though many want to. Esther's effort to get a life for herself is pathetic and beautiful at the same time, showing eternal hope in the human spirit for something better. Even poor Tom in "Blood-Burning Moon," the ugliest of all the stories, has a noble sense of dignity about him when he is lynched and burned...

A stake was sunk into the ground. Rotting floor boards piled around it. kerosene poured on the rotting floor boards. Tom bound to the stake, His breast was bare. Nails' scratches let little lines of blood trickle down and mat into the hair. His face, his eyes were set and stony. Except for irregular breathing, one would have thought him already dead" (p. 36).
Beauty is an important element in Toomer's work. These stories could be unbearable without the beauty he brings to our attention. For Toomer beauty is an anesthetizing agent against pain. What would life be without the beauty of women singing folksongs and children like Karintha who "at sunset, when there was no wind, and the pine-smoke from over by the sawmill hugged the earth, and you couldn't see more than a few feet in front, her sudden darting past you was a bit of vivid color, like a black bird that flashes in light" (p. 3)? The black experience in the South that he portrays is so fearful and so full of violence and sadness, and yet his people make the best of things and achieve a sort of normalcy that transcends the evil aspects. Beauty is the agent of…