Racial Inequality

From the very beginning of the story, when "Charity Quietness sits in the toilet," eating her eggs, while Nat eats in the kitchen, the divide between African Americans and Caucasians plays a major role in the story. Nat recalls how he invited Charity to eat with him in the kitchen when she first came to work as his cleaning woman. Charity is only able to take "a small bite" out of one of her eggs. At that point, as Nat says, "she stopped chewing and she got up and carried the eggs in a cup to the bathroom, and since then she eats there."

This divide between cultures is even more apparent when Nat recalls the "rundown," "Negro houses" that are located in the middle of a "not-so-hot white neighborhood." As Nat says, "In those days though I had little myself I was old enough to know...