Themes addressed in the novel include racism suffered by black people, color differentiation among African Americans (Alice's light skin is associated with her higher class), employment discrimination against blacks, and class divisions among whites and blacks. Communism is featured generously, as the Communist unionists ("agitators") are the only ones who talk about the issue of race in any way with which the protagonist agrees. There is some reference to jazz.
The book’s title plays on the third line of a popular children’s rhyme, which follows the second line historically included a racial epithet, “catch a n** by the toe”(in the US and other English-speaking countries like Australia). Mid-20th century variants in the US replaced the epithet with “tiger.”
The novel is referred to in Frantz Fanon's book, Black Skin White Masks (1952), first published in French, in the chapter titled "The Fact of Blackness".[2]
