The City
“Refuge” is the defined as the stage of being safe or finding sanctuary from the pursuit. Harlem is the city of refuge in the title that King Solomon Gillis. As a place of being safe or even finding sanctuary from those who might be pursuing him for involvement in the death of a white man in North Carolina, this make the title just the beginning of a string of irony in the story.
Harlem Isn't Heaven
Upon his arrival in Harlem, Gillis looks around and see things he’s never seen in North Carolina, including a black policeman in uniform ordering even white people when they can stop and when they can proceed again. Black faces are everywhere and the promises that Harlem is a sanctuary city for blacks where rights are not routinely violated seem to be true. Gillis is about to find out that his optimistic thought that he “Done died an’ woke up in Heaven” is pure irony.
Harlem Isn't Even North Carolina
Metaphor is also engaged effectively for the purpose of describing setting. The entire thematic structure of the story creates a juxtaposition between the expectations of Harlem as “Heaven” and the brutally ugly reality which is slowly revealed to Gillis. One direct example is his living condition:
“King Solomon Gillis sat meditating in a room half the size of his hencoop back home, with a single window opening for an airshaft.”
The Arrest
Gillis is a rube from the Dixie who is leapt upon by ravenous small-town drug peddlers and obliviously sucked into their nefarious designs. Ironically, one of his only two dreams (the other involving a girl) is to become a policeman. Even more ironically, when he finally arrested, it is a black uniformed police officer to whom he finally gives up. Most ironic of all: this is the moment when he is most proud of being black a man.
