Narrator being handed his own key
The narrator was considered as a baby in his house as he was the youngest. Due to this fact, he was fussed over and was kept under observation. Being handed over the house keys was like a rite of passage to maturity which meant that he could take care of himself
East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon
This book was given to the narrator by his teacher, when she caught him reading a comic during detention. The narrator would often get involved in fights with other kids over his speech impediment. The book was a collection of Norwegian fairy tales, and changed the narrator’s perspective about books. He realized he liked reading books.
Brown paper bag
The narrator was a very short-tempered boy and was often prone to fights on slight provocation. After discovering his love for books, he began visiting library and bringing books from there. But, would get laughed at as book reading was considered un-manly and he didn’t like the suggestion of being considered effeminate, and neither did he want to get into any more fights. Hence, he started taking a brown paper bag to carry books.
Potter's field
The narrator recounts that since most of the people living in Harlem were poor, or unprivileged, they were often left without any resources in their old age or even a proper burial if they died in debt. Hence, most of them paid insurance simply to make sure that they would have enough money to get decent burials when they died. Even so, most of them could afford burials at a potter’s field. According to narrator, getting buried in potter’s field almost obliterated one’s life and acheviements. It became a declaration of the fact that the person buried there was poor and lived in Harlem.
I was officially disturbed
When the narrator’s mother realizes that he had been missing thirty days of school and could be dismissed from there, she gives an explanation of him having bouts of nervousness due to a bout of Scarlet fever several years ago. It was a weak explanation according to the narrator, but it was the only thing that could have kept him in school and so they decided to go along with it. The depression of narrator and his absenteeism from things he liked occurs in many places as a motif of the attention the narrator felt he had deserved even if there had been no events visually to declare him depressed.
