A wild forest filled with death
The black man from the story “The Man Who Lived Underground” stumbles upon a room containing a vault in his exploration of the world from underground. He decides to rob the vault, not for the money, but for the symbolic nature of it. He uses the money as a wallpaper in the room underground, and decides to use the room as a hide-out, with money being the symbol of the world outside that branded him guilty. Furthermore, he contemplates how he didn’t actually steal the money but picked it up from the world that, to him, seems like a wild forest filled with death.
Like a hungry dog
David from the story “A Man Who Was Almost a Man”, after being confronted by his family and ordered to work for two years for free to pay for the mule, decides to search for the gun he’d hidden from everyone. He is described as desperately and frantically digging for the gun, unwilling to give up on this symbol of masculinity. “Like a hungry dog scratching for a bone, he pawed it up.”
They treat me like a mule
It’s interesting how David uses the comparison to a mule after feeling wronged by his parents and the plantation owner who ordered him to work for free for two years, to pay for the mule he shot. It’s as if the act of accidentally killing the mule was a stepping point for him to stop being treated like one.
Locked in the dark underworld of American life
In the story “A Man Who Went to Chicago” the author reveals his experiences with racial segregation and racism. He recalls a time when he worked in the maintenance of a hospital, together with three other black men. He comments on the racism, the mistreatment of the four of them and being treated as less than. They were never allowed to be curious about the other aspects of the work in hospital, intentionally refused any knowledge. He compares this one example to how black people in America were kept locked in the dark underworld of American life for three hundred years.
