"A Party Down at the Square" is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by the American writer

Ralph Ellison Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel ''Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote ''Shadow and Act'' (1964), a collecti ...

, first published in 1997, three years after the author's death. It is a story of a Deep South lynching as perceived by a white boy from Cincinnati, Ohio.

Summary

The short story “A Party Down at the Square” is the story of a boy who witnesses a

lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...

. The young boy is at his uncle's house somewhere in the

Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war ...

when a bunch of men come in a hurry saying there will be a party down at the square. The reader then realizes that the “party” consists of a lynching of a young black man. The whole town is attending, except for the town's black population, and everyone is screaming and yelling in excitement for the lynching of this young man. With a storm confusing, an airplane crashes through electric power lines but lands successfully near the town square. A young woman gets electrocuted and dies instantly, the plane is on fire, and electrical wires are sparking. Despite the mayhem of the storm and plane landing, the mob turns its focus back on the young black man who is getting burned to death. When the black man politely asks for a quick death, Jed Wilson, a leader of the lynch mob, refuses, saying, "...ain't no Christians around tonight." The black man burns to death, his corpse turning to ashes. After the emotional experience of the night, the narrator falls ill, causing him to be mocked by his Southern relatives. Later at a general store, a poor white sharecropper speaks out against the lynching, arguing that it does not serve a purpose. The other people in the town tell him to "shut his damn mouth." The visceral experience of the night, in particular the toughness of the young black man, lingers on for the narrator.

Analysis of narrator

The story is written from the narrator's perspective, a boy from Cincinnati.

Characters

; Lynching victim : The young black man is the victim. The lynch mob ties up with a rope and puts gasoline on his feet. Under extreme suffering, he asks the crowd to "please cut isthroat" -- a request curtly rebuffed by Jed Wilson, leader of the mob. ; Jed Wilson : In the story, Jed Wilson seems to lead the mob. Popular in the town, he is expected to be voted sheriff. When the lynching victim asks for mercy, Jed refuses, saying, "...ain't no Christians around tonight....We're just one hundred percent Americans," drawing laughs from the crowd. ; Woman burned by electric wire : After the plane knocks down electric power lines, the large crowd gathers and accidentally knocks a white woman toward the live wires, burning and killing her. When the crowd turns their attention from her to return to the burning of the black man, the mob's near-total desensitization to violence is shown.

Themes

;

Bystander effect The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a social psychological theory that states that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when there are other people present. First proposed in 1964, much research, mostly in the lab, has f ...

: Throughout the story, the narrator mentions how he is physically disgusted by the events he witnesses, but he continues to view them. The Bystander Effect is the idea that the larger the crowd, the less likely one individual to come to the aid of someone becomes. ; Desensitization to violence : The narrator witnesses the physical burning of a black man as well as the electrocution and death of a white woman. Although the narrator does get physically ill at the events, his uncle later tells him of the lynching, "You get used to it in time." ; Innocence ; Becoming a Man

Symbols

; Plane : While the events of the lynching harken back to the days when the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

was widely popular, the plane introduces an aspect of modernity to the story. When the narrator writes that "the airplane line is investigating to find who set the fire that almost wrecked their plane," it's odd that no one is concerned with investigating the

extrajudicial killing An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether ...

of a black man.

Use of the Word "Nigger"

In "A Party Down at the Square," "

nigger In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cases ...

" appears over 40 times in the story. The word adds realism to the story, as it was a common word in the setting of the story. Ellison uses the word to get the reader to grasp a deeper understanding of the racist mindset because it has helped deeply ingrain racism into the thought processes of the narrator. The word dehumanizes the lynch mob victim, which makes "A Party Down at the Square" a powerful indictment of the history of Southern racism.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Party Down at the Square 1997 short stories Works by Ralph Ellison Short stories published posthumously