“November Cotton Flower” Summary

“November Cotton Flower” Themes

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  Adversity and Hope

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “November Cotton Flower”

• Lines 1-2

  Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold,
  Made cotton-stalks look rusty, seasons old,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 3-4

  And cotton, scarce as any southern snow,
  Was vanishing;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 4-8

  the branch, so pinched and slow,
  Failed in its function as the autumn rake;
  Drouth fighting soil had caused the soil to take
  All water from the streams; dead birds were found
  In wells a hundred feet below the ground—

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-11

  Such was the season when the flower bloomed.
  Old folks were startled, and it soon assumed
  Significance.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-14

  Superstition saw
  Something it had never seen before:
  Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,
  Beauty so sudden for that time of year.

  

  

  

  

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“November Cotton Flower” Symbols

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  Natural Decay

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  The November Cotton Flower

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“November Cotton Flower” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Sibilance

  

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

  

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“November Cotton Flower” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Boll-weevil
• Cotton-stalks
• Southern
• Branch
• Rake
• Drouth

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “November Cotton Flower”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“November Cotton Flower” Speaker

“November Cotton Flower” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “November Cotton Flower”

More “November Cotton Flower” Resources

• External Resources

  • A Harlem Renaissance Introduction — Learn more about the cultural movement with which Toomer was often linked—despite his protests.

  • The Great Migration — Learn more about the mass movement of Black Americans out of the Deep South in the mid-20th century.

  • Toomer's Biography — An in-depth article about Toomer's life. 

  • Toomer and Race — An article exploring Toomer's attitude towards racial division. 

  • America, Cotton, and Racism — A podcast exploring the role of cotton production in the American economy and its relationship with slavery and oppression.