The plantations of the South
The novel begins with a classic archetypal story in African-American literature: The butler at a post-slavery plantation. This picture is a challenging reminder that although the South is hauntingly beautiful and nearly gothic in style, the history of the South is unfortunately filled with compromising situations caused by racism and slavery. That is what happens in these settings in The Sport of the Gods.
The New York City scene
In New York, things are getting kind of fun, but the novel still happens before the Harlem Renaissance, anticipating it in a way by showing that this story is actually systemic, and since many Black families shared experiences like this novel's, this imagery literally anticipates the Harlem Renaissance by pointing to all the depth and dimension of these growing African-American communities, especially in New York City specifically.
The imagery of prison
The imagery of prison is used to remind the reader what it means for a person to be condemned to fate. The fate of Berry is settled just by his skin color, unfortunately, so his prison sentence represents all the legal and social consequences of racial prejudice. His son's prison sentence represents all the moral traps that people can fall into when their lives become unmanageable.
The imagery of alcoholism
This novel describes alcoholism clearly. Joe finds a job where people seem happy and open-minded, but the job is at a bar, and the "happy" people all party and drink there, so he thinks alcohol is a path to social joy and peace in his self, but when he drinks, something else happens. He numbs the pain and confuses that with true happiness, and within a few weeks, he's a blackout drunk. This happens to many, many people, because the feeling of being drunk is so different than the truth of reality, which is why he is able to commit a murder in a drunken rampage—his perception of reality is literally impaired by chronic malnutrition, sleep deprivation, prolonged emotional agony, and worst of all, a gnarly drinking habit.
