The Rat
In the opening scene of the novel, Bigger has to deal with a disgusting rat in his family’s one-room apartment:"There he is!" the mother screamed again.A huge black rat squealed and leaped at Big...
The Pigeon Flying Away
Rule of thumb: when anyone in literature (or, hey, in real life) mentions that they'd like to be a bird, there's an approximately 99% chance that they're wishing for a little more freedom.In Book O...
Mary's Severed Head
After Bigger kills Mary, the image of her severed head with blood soaking her hair keeps returning to haunt him. As he opens the furnace to see if her body has burned, it appears to him as if the c...
Bigger's Dream
Hey: we heart Freud over here, but we're by no means devotees. The guy's theories are riddled with holes. That being said, when we're presented with a dream in literature (especially in literature...
Snow
Snow starts falling after Bigger kills Mary and burns her body in the furnace. It continues to fall until he’s captured. This could been seen as a symbol of white society enveloping and overwhelm...
Mrs. Dalton's Blindness
Mrs. Dalton’s literal blindness serves as a metaphor for white people's social and cultural blindness. Just as she couldn’t see that Bigger was in the room with her daughter, or that Mary was a...