Night versus Day

The events of “Harlem Shadows” almost entirely take place during the night. Setting the poem at nighttime opens up a different social world within Harlem. McKay emphasizes the importance of nighttime by positioning an otherwise abstract object as an active agent. Hence, “the night lets fall its veil” (2). In other words, the night brings itself into existence. Once night falls, the speaker sees “the shapes of girls who pass to bend and barter at desire’s call” (3-4). In essence, a new economy emerges as well, an economy which operates on the logic of men’s desire. Thus, the women working as sex workers must not only “barter” with money, but “bend” what is presumably their bodies into shapes men will desire.

Although the poem is set only during the night, the time quickly changes throughout the poem. First the night “lets fall its...