35 pages • 1 hour read
Big Boy Leaves Home
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Symbols & Motifs
Trains
The sound of passing trains punctuates and heralds several key moments in “Big Boy Leaves Home,” such as just before the boys encounter Bertha and as Big Boy desperately runs for cover. The story also includes a variety of real and imaginary train imagery, and Big Boy’s flight takes place along train tracks.
The story’s train motif is an allusion to African American folk culture. Trains appear in African American spirituals and folklore, and the boys, after hearing the train whistle, chant, “This Train Is Bound for Glory,” a gospel song popularized by Black singer and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1930s (18). Historically, the Underground Railroad was a system that helped Black people escape slavery and used train metaphors as a code for the secret operation—enslaved people were “passengers,” guides were “conductors,” and safehouses were “stations” along the route. Trains generally symbolize the escape to freedom on the one hand or riding toward salvation in the afterlife on the other.
The boys have intimate knowledge of the trains that go through town; they can identify each one that passes by sound. In the first section of the story, a train goes by that’s headed north. The boys’ reaction to it shows they associate it with their fantasies of escape. They all long to catch the train north, but even as they imagine that possibility, another possibility looms in the train symbolism—that death is the only escape from their oppression. This second possibility is why the train sounds “mournful” (18) and “far away” (28).
The Snake
When Big Boy first arrives at the kiln, he thinks he has reached a safe point, only to find that a massive snake is lurking in his hiding spot. For the second time that day, Big Boy must battle for his life. The snake’s presence is a reminder that nowhere is truly safe for Big Boy (and, by extension, African American people in the Jim Crow South). It also reduces Big Boy’s experience to the most basic of natural principles—the bare struggle for survival.
The snake does not fit any obvious description of a readily identifiable species, though, of American snakes, only the diamondback rattlesnake could reach its purported size. This ambiguity puts more emphasis on the descriptors Wright chooses for it. The snake is “brown” and “six foot”—that is, roughly the color and size of Big Boy himself. As a predator, the snake may represent the darker forces of nature, such as hate and violence.
Music
Songs and singing function as a motif in “Big Boy Leaves Home.” They are woven throughout the story, appearing in the book’s Epigraph, the opening section (coming from the mouths of the boys), and again in the fourth section (coming from the mob). The boys join together in songs both spiritual and profane. They know them by heart and don’t miss a beat. When the white mob parades down the hill to lynch Bobo, they sing a deeply racist parody of the Union Army marching song “John Brown’s Body” (54-55). In both instances, the italicized song lyrics mark moments of collectivity when the various voices the story records are heard in unison. For better or worse, songs are a tool of social cohesion.
The mob singing a parody of “John Brown’s Body” is notable. John Brown was an abolitionist who was executed for inciting an uprising of enslaved people at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. The mob mocking John Brown indicates their dedication to racist violence. On the other hand, invoking “John Brown’s Body” highlights the story’s ambivalence toward nonviolent resistance, situating Big Boy’s violence in the abolitionist tradition.
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By Richard Wright
