A Summer Tragedy

“A Summer Tragedy” is a short story written by poet and fiction author Arna Bontemps. It was originally published in 1933 in Opportunity and has since been included in multiple anthologies, including Bontemps’s 1973 short story collection The Old South: “A Summer Tragedy” and Other Stories of the Thirties. Bontemps is also known for the 1959 biography Frederick Douglass: Slave, Fighter, Freeman. Focusing on an elderly Black couple who have endured a difficult life of share farming, “A Summer Tragedy” addresses the themes of Desperation and Hopelessness, The Confines of Masculinity, and The Toll of Poverty.

This guide refers to the version included in the 2004 anthology Ebony Rising: Short Fiction of the Greater Harlem Renaissance Era, edited by Craig Gable.

Content Warning: This story features discussions and depictions of death by suicide.

The story’s events take place over the course of a single summer afternoon. The main characters are two elderly Black people: Jeff Patton, a share farmer, and his wife, Jennie. It is clear from the start that the couple is experiencing the physical decline that accompanies aging. The story opens with Jeff and Jennie getting dressed up for a trip.