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Anthropomorphized Activism and Redness: Examining the Storm in Ralph Ellison’s A PARTY DOWN AT THE SQUARE

Ralph Ellison’s short story “A Party Down at the Square,” published posthumously in 1997, depicts a public lynching from the perspective of a young white narrator. At the beginning of the story and throughout the lynching, a violent thunderstorm brews and wreaks havoc on the inhabitants of the town, causing intensified chaos and distress to the young narrator as he describes the destruction of powerlines, store windows, and the life of an innocent black man. Some scholars, such as Barbara Foley, have briefly commented on the storm and interpreted it as one of several instances of metaphorical assault against capitalism (327–328). Brian Roberts, though opposed to Foley’s conclusion regarding the shared leftist sentiments between “A Party Down at the Square” and Ellison’s novel Invisible Man, defends Foley’s conclusion that the story depicts Ellison’s early sympathies with the Communist Party (88–90). Anthony Stewart claims that Ellison’s reliance on violent descriptions in “A Party Down at the Square” indicate Ellison’s opposition to racism and class distinction and serve to alert the narrator to the reality of black marginalization in America (1–5). I will synthesize these analyses through a more detailed and thorough analysis of the storm as the anthropomorphized protagonist of the story, engaged in direct combat with the town’s racist and capitalistic nature. Recasting the storm as the anthropomorphized hero of the story is rooted in the socialist realist literary tradition of the early Soviet Union and enriches the similarities and sympathies that Ellison fostered towards communist ideology. This storm, contrary to Foley’s view of the storm as a mere symbol of “the cataclysmic coming of fascism” in America, is an active opponent of capitalism when personified and viewed outside of the human narrator’s perspective (327). My interpretation of the storm as the anthropomorphized actor amplifies Ellison’s critique of racism in the United States and newly illuminates Ellison’s leftist sympathies and proclivity towards communism.