Curtains
Curtains become a symbol of profound mystery and trepidation constructed upon sociological divides for the boy in the story. A major difference between the very poor and those average where he lives is simply the need for curtains. It is a stunning bit of imagery:
“The boy had never looked out of a window that had curtains on it. Whenever he passed houses with curtains on the windows, he remembered that if he put his face close against the curtains on the washline he could see through them. He thought there were always eyes, close against the curtains, looking out at him. He watched the windows out of the corner of his eye; he always felt scared until he had passed. Passing a cabin was different. In a cabin window there were just faces with real eyes looking out.”
Biblical Imagery
Biblical imagery plays a big role in the story, especially relating to the boy. This familiarity with the greatest stories of the bible helps to universalize the unnamed family by embedding their experience with the black church tradition in which southern blacks, especially, are steeped. The particular heroes and villains which are specifically chosen is telling also:
“The boy listened to the wind passing through the tops of the tall pines; he thought they moved like giant brooms sweeping the sky. The moonlight raced down through the broken spaces of swaying trees and sent bright shafts of light along the ground and over him. The voice of the wind in the pines reminded him of one of the stories his mother had told him about King David. The Lord had said to David that when he heard the wind moving in the tops of the cedar trees, he would know that the Lord was fighting on his side and he would win.”
The Harshness
Imagery is used to particularly good effect in describing the conditions of living of the sharecropper family at the center of the story. The author magnificently conveys the harshness of the land, the isolation of their circumstances and the alienation such conditions inevitably serves to create:
“Stalk land, fallow fields, and brushland, all appeared to be sewn together by wide fencerow stitches of trees. Their bare branches spread out to join together the separate patches of land. Weeds grew on either side of the road in summer, and a thin strip of green clung to life between the dusty tracks. In summer a horse and wagon made almost no noise in the soft earth. In winter when the ground was frozen, the rattle of wheels and each distinct hoofbeat punctuated the winter quiet. When the wind blew, little clouds of dust would rise in the road and follow the wind tracks across the fields.”
The Climax
The story slowly reaches its climax through deceptively anti-climactic imagery. Everything is about to change for the family in a bigger way than they can possibly imagine, but the author holds back at first, preferring to go with understatement rather than melodrama:
“A lone figure came on the landscape as a speck and slowly grew into a ripply form through the heat waves. `Scorchin’ to be walkin’ and totin’ far today,’ she said as she pointed to the figure on the road…As the figure on the road drew near, it took shape and grew indistinct again in the wavering heat. Sometimes it seemed to be a person dragging something, for little puffs of red dust rose in sulfurous clouds at every other step. Once or twice they thought it might be a brown cow or mule, dragging its hooves in the sand and raising and lowering its weary head.”
