Since the beginning of time, slaves were used as a means to produce crops efficiently and at a high functioning pace. In the poem “Reapers” by Jean Toomer, he uses a series of imagery to describe what life on the plantation was back then. Throughout the short, 8 line poem, slaves, or preferably “black” slaves are deemed reapers; emotionless beings”sharpening” their tools as a means to “continue cutting weeds.” The use of imagery describes that “black horses” are the ones carrying out such harsh acts all by their lonesome. Thereby, slaves are depicted as not only reapers, but as an animal themselves; plowing a “mower through the weeds.” Each and every slave on a plantation would have to do their work of mowing down the weeds and tending to the
