Essay Questions

What is the first clue that Mouse Uggams is trouble?

When King Solomon Gillis first engages Mouse—without realizing who he is—he is asking for directions. Keep in mind that both men come from the very same hometown down south though neither recognizes the other at first. When Mouse first gives him directions, the response from Gillis is written in dialect, “Thank y’, suh.” Now, being from south and having been living in Harlem for several years, Mouse would immediately be able to make the distinction between a southern accent and a Boston accent. After all, a southern accent and Boston brogue sound absolutely nothing alike. Despite this, Mouse asks Gillis, “You from—Massachusetts?” The slight delay is suggestive that Mouse knows for a fact this stranger is in no way from anywhere close to New England. While Gillis can be excused for not recognizing a certain quality of duplicity in Mouse right from the start, the antenna of most readers should immediately prick up at this ridiculous inquiry.

Based on the portrait that this story presents of Harlem, what similar sounding title might be appropriately sincere than the one the author chose for the sake of irony?

King Solomon Gillis arrives in Harlem bursting with optimistic hope that everything he has learned second-hand (at best) it will prove true. On the run after being involved in the murder (though he claims it was an accident) of a white man back home in North Carolina, Harlem can only ironically be termed a city of refuge since it winds up providing no refuge at all—much less an escape from justice—for Gillis. The story opens on an image of the sun shining so bright over Harlem that it literally hurts the eyes of the new arrival. That moment will prove to be the peak of his optimistic hopes proving true in practice as from that point on Gillis becomes just another exile from elsewhere arriving in the big city to be used up and thrown away. Gillis is the disposable human being, little different from the waste which produce the foul odors which rise up from though airshaft, enter the single small window and pollute the air of his chicken-coop-sized new home. Ultimately, Harlem proves to be for Gillis (as for countless others) less a city of refuge than a city of refuse.