During this short story there is always this feeling of menace and some kind of threat which is created by the blackout and the odd conversation between the two. This feeling is created especially at the beggining, introduction of the story when the blackout and the loneliness were being described by Mais. He used words and phrases such as; wave of panic, bands of hooligans roaming the streets after dark and assaulting unprotected women, slinking black shadow, to get the message across. There are some words in those phrases which highlightes that feeling of menace and the threat such as panic, hooligans roaming, shadow. After the man is introduced, Mais used those types of words to show how uncomfortable and nervous the women becomes when talking to the man. During the conversation we come up with words such as; unrest, unnerved, he made her feel uncomfortable, nervously, challenging, disturbing quite often and that is again to emphasize the discomfort of the woman about talking to the man. She feels very nervous and uncomfortable for some reason. It is also obvious that the man is actually enjoying her discomfort so he keeps on talking about her to make her feel nervous. At the same time he is trying to teach her the ridiculusness of her racist thoughts by standing up to her with dignity and pride. He is not teaching as in giving a lecture but he is trying to make her see her own mistakes.
The story has two characters; the man and the women. They are very different from each other both in terms of character and physical. The man is a poor black Jamaican, and the woman is a wealthy white American. Their nationalities can also tell a lot about their characters. American, arrogant (superior), and Jamaican, like most of the people in third world countries, dignified. As the story develops, the woman gets adventurous about everything, the blackout, the man, the conversation. Words such as; novelty, intrigue, any sort of adventure, tropical islands prove this point and emphasize her actions, behavior and thoughts. Throughout the story, there are no names for those people, instead they are referred to as the man and the woman. The reason is that those two are complete strangers and they represent the general behavior of men and women around the world. It is the universal application to men and women in general. Again in the story the word ‘Black’ is always capitalized like a proper noun to show that the man is one of its kind and to respect him. Even though the reader gets the feelings of the women, and her interpretation of the man’s attitudes, the story is not told from her point of view. It is a third person narrative. During the story, we actually empathize with the man. Because of his behavior, there is a certain respect built for him and a sense of antagonism grows for the woman.
The main themes of this story are, ‘racism’ and ‘intimacy’. The whole story is based on racism and the racist thoughts of this women and also there are some moments of intimacy between the two despite their corresponding thoughts. She always makes racist comments but the man doesn’t seem very offended by them. Instead he plays around with her by making her feel nervous for the comments she made. When the man approaches to her the narrator says from her point of view; ‘the thing that struck her immediately was the fact that he was Black…In her country not every night a white woman could be nonchalantly approached by a Black man. This shows how racist and prejudice she is against black people, which is a big reason for that disappointment and antipathy against her. During the conversation she keeps on making racist comments and having racist thoughts. She had no intention of standing at a street corner jawing with – well, with a Black man, In America they lynch them for less than this. The discomfort of the woman can also be seen from this racist comment; If he had said something rude she would have preferred it. It would have been no more than she would have expected of him. She expects this Black man to say something rude at her but instead he starts talking to her to make her nervous and tense for the things she just did.
There are moments of intimacies which sparkle between the two of them during the conversation. The woman wants something to happen between them, that’s the major reason why they’re created. Unlike other aspects, they don’t start until the conversation begins which makes sense. When the man first asked for the light she thinks ‘there was a suggestion of intimacy’ and later on him coming close to her and bending over to light the cigarette also suggests some sort of intimacy between them. Also her talking about jawing with a Black man and how indecent that is, is also intimacy but that is the last one in the story because after a while the man tells her that he is not interested in her. That unexpected comment makes her undermined and emotionally damaged. The reader is also shocked and appreciates the man rejecting her because it makes the reader think that man is more superior, it also makes the women feel and seem less important and attractive than both the reader and herself thought she was.
At the end of the story, the woman gets on the bus and at the same time the man is picking up the cigarette. This shows how poor and desperate this man is. He is very poor and he doesn’t have enough money to buy cigarettes so he collects the ends of them from the streets. It is also contrasting because during the story this picture was painted in our heads about the man that he was very great and wise, and even though him picking up that cigarette doesn’t change the fact that he is still very smart and logical the reader starts to pity him. This shows how different two cultures can be and how different their reactions to events can be. Also the man playing around with the woman and making her uncomfortable is a new way of defense for negros because the expected was for him to get mad and start shouting at her but instead he shows her that even though he is different he is more of a human than she is.
