Ann Petry - Like a Winding Sheet (Overview - Part 2)

Read part 1 of this overview which includes a brief introduction, includes a link to the full text of the story, some details about the author's life as well as an analysis of setting, plot. 

This second installment contains an analysis of the characters that appear in the story and the point of view. 

Part 3 discusses the symbols found in the story.

Part 4 deals with the story's title (how it foreshadows the ending) and themes.



Don't forget to read other overviews of literary works or find posts explaining literary terms by clicking on the picture below.

Ann Petry – Like a Winding Sheet

Characters

• Johnson
• manual labor takes its toll on him: works in shifts at a plant
• monotonous job: pushes cart around for 10 hours a night + picks up finished parts from workbenches
• standing work:
• spends hours on his feet ⇒ his legs ache
• has to wait in line to get paid: other factories (like the one Mae works at) deliver pay check to workers’ benches, so they don’t have to stand waiting for their turn
• has been married for many years
• “They’d been married too long and got along too well …”
• tired: not getting enough sleep
• returns home in the morning and daylight doesn’t let him sleep well
• it’s implied that he doesn’t get to sleep as soon as he comes home from work because of Mae: “And he thought if he and Mae would go right to bed when they got home from work they’d catch a few hours of darkness for sleeping. But they never did. They fooled around – cooking and eating and listening to the radio and he always stayed in a big chair in the living room …”
• he sits in the chair while Mae is moving about the house, all sprightly
• when he says “They fooled around” he means 'She fooled around while he’s sitting in a chair'
• if Mae is all lively, listening to the radio, cooking and singing, he can’t get to sleep
• this is what happens when he gets home on this day: Mae is already there, listening to the radio turned up loud and singing; he sits down in the chair, as usual
• Mae’s vivacious personality clashes with his exhaustion: what she does is remind him of the bad day he’s had as she fixes her hair and admires herself in the mirror, chewing gum, looking so fresh and relaxed (cf. Mae further down and the section on lipstick under symbolism in part 3 of this overview)
• clever, inventive
• has good ideas how to make things work better at the plant so workers won’t have to suffer
• his job could be done on a little truck
• he says he’d install more benches
• paychecks could be given to the workers directly at their benches instead of making them wait in line
• apparently, this plant doesn't care about its employees (forewoman employed here proves this; making people stand in line as if they’re beggars waiting for a handout is demeaning)
• shows constraint:
• has kept himself from hitting Mae
• checks his impulses with the forewoman and the coffee girl
• realizes that others are violent towards women: “… he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her roughly or threaten to strike her like a lot of men might have done. He wasn’t made that way.”
• character flaw: swallows anger, can’ t get rid of tension⇒this transforms him into a violent person
• and no one helps him do this either, so his reactions are also the result of other people’s apathy / lack of attention / unwillingness to listen to his problems + respond appropriately to his physical and mental difficulties
• after the coffee incident, he is mad at himself for not taking action, for forcing himself to stand quiet even when he wanted to “strike out”
• his long marriage is a reflection of his monotonous work: he goes along and never talks back to Mae, but tries to reason with her even though deep down he wants “to talk to her roughly”
• making allowances for Mae’s behavior/idiosyncrasies is similar in his mind to making concessions to other women in charge of his ‘well-being’
• forewoman dictates whether he will have a job
• the coffee girl decides whether he will get that cup of coffee that lessens “the fatigue lines” on the faces of the customers that Johnson envies
• biased:
• like Mrs. Scott who is a racist, Johnson is a sexist:
• can’t get over the idea that his foreman is a woman
• can’t imagine that the girl by the coffee urn was telling the truth about there not being any coffee for awhile

• Mae
• lively, buoyant, animated, positive
• is seen up before her husband
• “It’s a nice morning” clashes with Johnson’s grouchy mood in the morning
• giggles a lot: Johnson says it’s one of the things he always found pleasant about her
• moves quickly without seeming to be in a hurry: Johnson might envy this as he feels exhausted all the time
• listens and sings along to the radio at the end of her shift turned up loud
• her jovial behavior creates tension: Johnson lashes out at this lightness of being
• he possibly equates her chirpiness with frivolousness (backed by vanity as she looks at herself in the mirror, fixes her hair; lipstick on women, mannerism of tossing head back)  
• acts as his supervisor
• “ … and if you don’t spring up out of there you’re going to be late again.”
• “Twice last week. Three times the week before. And once the week before and –- ”
• “After two years you oughtta be used to it.”
• “Come on, get up,” she ordered.
• “Aw, come on and eat.”
• “You’re nothing but a …”: this is the final straw for Johnson –
• being told by his wife what he is (strike 1)
• being called a “nigger” by his wife (strike 2)
• being told by his wife that he’s “trying to act tough” (strike 3, she’s out): Mae attacks his virility (in men’s minds, a basic trait of an adult male is toughness / uncompromising determination – Johnson has been deprived of this one too many times this day when he had to suppress his urge to lash out)
• being taunted by Mae that he’s only acting tough, he decides to show her that he isn’t just acting (cf. reasons for violence in the themes section in part 4)
• superstitious
• thinks she should stay home on Friday the 13^th
• ironically, it’s the following morning that bad luck (and Johnson’s fist) strikes her
• her being superstitious is the cause of Johnson’s bad day (in Johnson’s mind)
• this isn’t explicit, but in Johnson’s mind it’s the first spark that got the ball rolling
• if he hadn’t argued for 15 minutes with her, he wouldn’t have been late for work
• his forewoman wouldn’t have had cause to upbraid him for his lateness (so wouldn’t have sworn at him so abominably)
• he wouldn’t have entered the restaurant with a hostile/biased predisposition
• nonchalant
• radio turned up loud, she sings
• is chewing gum
• admires her reflection in the mirror
• pats “a curl in place near the side of her head”
• lifts her hair away form the back of her neck
• ducks her head forward then back
• answers “complacently”
• giggles
• it’s as if nothing is wrong for Mae: she sees her husband grumpy, tired but not once does she ask what’s wrong, or why he’s acting this way
• she drops the question whether he got bawled out by his boss, but doesn’t pick up on any signals, doesn’t ask any other follow-up questions even though he slowly answers “Just tired”
• is angry at him
• puts hands on her hips
• says he’s picking on her
• “… her eyes were angry …”
• “… her sense of humor was struggling with her anger …”

• Mrs. Scott
• forewoman at the plant where Johnson works
• abominable behavior towards Johnson: racist language
• is angry about sth already before turning to talk to Johnson: “She was sore about something.”
• overgeneralizes: “You guys always got excuses.”
• speaks before she thinks: backs down as soon as she is threatened by Johnson (couldn’t she have predicted he would get angry? Of course she could, but she doesn't think)
• thinks her position of power gives her the right to speak to people any way she wants to

• female workers at the plant
• reduced to mouths and gestures, snapping and snarling at each other when it’s close to quitting time
• help give us a clearer picture of what Johnson sees and feels (he is annoyed by women’s voices/talking, their mouths moving -- see part 3 under Symbolism)

• girl by the coffee urn
• scarlet lipstick, blond hair
• tosses head back a little; lifts hair away from the back of her neck: Johnson views this as a sign of “contempt for him”     
• Petry tells us that this is a mannerism of hers, that she does this out of habit because she does it again while she’s making a fresh pot of coffee
• is telling the truth / isn’t a bigot: she doesn’t refuse to serve coffee to Johnson (had he turned around as he was leaving, he would have seen he was wrong about her)

Point of View

• third person omniscient:

• we are able to see what Johnson’s thoughts are: we mainly see the story through his eyes
• “He saw that her sense of humor was struggling with her anger. But her sense of humor won because she giggled.”
• “He watched them walk to the porcelain topped tables carrying steaming cups of coffee and he saw that just the smell of the coffee lessened the fatigue lines in their faces. After the first sip their faces softened, they smiled, they began to talk and laugh.”

• we also see what he doesn't
• “When he went out the door he didn’t look back. If he had he would have seen the flickering blue flame under the shiny coffee urn being extinguished. The line of men who had stood behind him lingered a moment … The girl behind the counter poured water in the urn and swabbed it out and … she began making a fresh lot of coffee.”