Renaissance Writers

Cassia Busch

Mrs. Parkinson

English III

7 March 2016

     From the reading of “Tableau” by Countee Cullen, we find that Cullen and other Renaissance writers have hope for a future America where white and black people get along and work in unison. I believe Cullen uses children as the focus point of his poem because while white adults have grown thinking that African Americans inferior to them, children haven’t learned racism yet and do not see anything wrong with befriending kids of different ethnicities. Cullen writes, “Oblivious to look and word / They pass and see no wonder / That lightning brilliant as a sword / Should blaze the path of thunder” (9-12). This quote is very powerful because they are oblivious to the other people watching their out of the ordinary behavior, and they are just having fun together. It shows that their friendship is as normal and ordinary as thunder and lightning, and they don’t see anything abnormal about it.