Culture Presentation...Degradation?

I’d like to talk about the uncomfortable scene in Late Sunday Morning (On the Porch 1) when Agee and Evans witness a mini-performance of “nigger music” (26).  It is clear that all parties seem to be uncomfortable with this imposition of cultural exposure, as proposed by the landlords.   The music sang by the tenant farmers is described to be unenjoyable by both performers and listeners.  It is predictable and as Agee “had expected, not in the mellow and euphonious Fisk Quartette style, but in the style I have heard on records…jagged, tortured, stony, accented as if by hammers and cold chisels…” (26).  I found this imagery of tools, particularly the juxtaposition of hammers and chisels to be interesting.  Hammers are typically used to build things (though occasionally to tear down) while chisels are almost always used to shape the constructed object.  I found these metaphors to be entirely paradoxical to what the music was actually doing to the performers, as well as the audience. 

 

What could the music have been building up or shaping?  Perhaps the landlords saw it as an opportunity for the farmers to share their culture—something difficult to do when the farmers live on land that is not their own and are subjected to the culture of their landlord.  And in the initial description of the three men who are “summoned” to sing, they are “patiently” waiting.  But what about this scene gives a sense of total discomfort and tenseness?  The men are “not smiling,” and they stand in a “stiff frieze” waiting to be “noticed and released” (26).  The scene is almost reminiscent of cows waiting for the slaughter.  Do these men feel degraded from the summoning to sing?  At the end of their first song, the men were “abruptly silent; totally wooden; while the landlord smiled coldly” (27).  While Agee thinks the last song represents their “favorite and their particular pride,” how much of this pride was gained from their own heritage or culture, and what was degradation based on their assumed difference?  In the end, the men go away, “putting their white hats on their heads” as they walk “into the sunlight” (28).  The men seem to be numb, but not oblivious, to the affects of the exploitation of the landlord.