Point of View

“Reapers” is written from a singular first-person point of view through an unnamed speaker. However, direct reference to this first-person perspective remains relatively minimal throughout the poem, only occurring in the second and seventh lines through the repetition of the phrase “I see.” As such, the first-person speaker, seems characterized by a sense of indifference and passivity, even lacking the personal agency associated with declarative I-statements. The speaker is seemingly content to remain in the sensory world of what he “[sees],” rather than imposing his own subjectivity in the reader’s experience of “Reapers.” Therefore, his passivity can be read as the speaker’s attempt not to tokenize the Black experience – he is simply viewing the particular experience of “Black reapers” laboring during harvest time right in front of him, without claiming them to be completely representative of the varied experiences of Black Americans (1).

Of...