Essay Questions

What do the boy’s two encounters with viciously racist adult say about the construction of institutionalized racism?

Both the men are in lower levels positions of authority: a deputy and a prison guard. Both treat the young boy with callous disregard for his feelings. They don’t see his youth or the fact that he has been separated from his father; all they see is his blackness and that very element means he is to be extended no recognition of humanity. Beyond the lack of sympathy, both also take things a step further by committing absolutely unnecessary physical acts directed toward the boy which are literal manifestations of racist disregard for another’s basic humanity. These are indecent men behaving vilely toward a young boy and though he engages in fantasies of retribution and a settling of scores, he walks silently away from each encounter, never daring even to come close to an confrontation. He is young but has already learned that the gatekeepers of justice and authority in America are not there to protect him from the bad guys and evil in the world. Instead, they are representatives of a system that is evil and run by the bad guys.

How does the family discover the courtroom fate of the father and what does it say about race relations at the time?

The mother works doing laundry for the more financially better-off white families in town. When returning to their homes to deliver the cleaned laundry she asks them to read the newspaper accounts of the trial and it is only in this way that she actually learns he has been found guilty and sentenced to prison. At no point has the Sheriff or the reporter or any of the people whose soiled linens she cleans made the effort to go to where she lives and inform her, either officially or not. Relations between the whites and blacks in the area have already become so profoundly steeped in the post-abolition racism that will eventually Jim Crow laws, the resurgence of the KKK, poll taxes and countless other systemic discriminatory applications that a black wife is not even considered deserving of the being informed that her husband is going away to prison and she may never see him again.

How does the author suggest something foreboding about the wonderfully rare delight of the smell of ham cooking?

The enjoyment of dining on a ham actually goes beyond merely being a rarity; the boy has only once experienced the smell of ham cooking in his own home. The ham, of course, is stolen and will eventually lead to the father being sent away to prison and assumed having died there, but in the moment the opportunity for such a feast and the ignorance of the circumstances of acquisition make the process of cooking a celebratory event. Except that the boy notices his mother isn’t singing as she usually does during times of joy, but is instead humming, which she only does during times of stress. The imagery of the humming is situated as foreshadowing of the dark consequences to come.