It's main topics are race relations, interracial relationships, family struggles and religious influence.

What's the actual assignment?

What is your preference to write about?

We can begin to work on a thesis statement once you've answered the two questions above.

My assignment is to write a 4 page term paper about the book. There was no assigned question or topics. I would like to use the way Lillian Smith paired certain characters and circumstances in the book but I do not know what I'm trying to prove.

My assignment is to write a 4 page term paper about the book. There was no assigned question or topics. I would like to use the way Lillian Smith paired certain characters and circumstances in the book but I do not know what I'm trying to prove.

How about the language of the senses? Equate with characters?

Lush beauty of the South --
Magnolia-scented air
Warm breezes
Southern gentility

vs.

Lynched black body with bulging eyes, twisted mouth, smell of burnt flesh

**********
Black culture of blues, gospel, jazz, gin vs. white middle-class, rigid, Methodist

That's a good idea but it wouldn't fill four pages.

That's a good idea but it wouldn't fill four pages.
Who were you thinking of concentrating on? With which differences? How would you draw comparisons?

That's a good idea but it wouldn't fill four pages.
I could do it and would draw more comparisons with the senses.

I was working on it yesterday and I found myself questioning the role of religion in the novel. I figured my thesis would either be "Through Brother Dunwoodie and his church, Smith suggests that religion is a corruptive force that causes people to live in fear" or "In Strange Fruit Smith seems to suggest that religion is only as strong as the fear it is able to evoke." Now I just to figure out how to outline the paper.