Like a Winding Sheet

Johnson’s wife, Mae, must also contend with harsh and exploitative economic conditions in New York City. She, like Johnson, works a night shift in a factory. She likely does not have as grueling of a job, physically, as does Johnson, as she seems well-rested and without pain in the morning. Mae has a warm and lighthearted sense of humor, which arises at both the beginning and the end of the story. She often lightens Johnson’s mood with teasing jokes, and her giggle is one of Johnson’s favorites of her characteristics. She is superstitious, as she wholeheartedly believes she shouldn’t leave the house on Friday the 13th. She also enjoys music, as she has the radio on when Johnson arrives home from work and frequently plays music through the night once they both arrive home.

Mae highlights how deeply Johnson is affected by his work and social conditions throughout the day. At the beginning of the story, their marriage is lighthearted and loving; the intensity of the day’s events and their impact on Johnson’s emotional state, however, change the dynamic of their relationship. When Mae tries to make a lighthearted comment to Johnson in order to dispel his bad mood, he descends into violence, viscerally and graphically hitting her in the face. This abrupt, horrific turn—from Mae’s sweet, cheerful disposition at the beginning to her violent beating at the end—augments the reader’s understanding of the depth of Johnson’s rage. Mae also represents a key figment within the Gendered Violence theme, illuminating how domestic violence is often a result of structural and social pressures that begin outside of the home. Further, Mae represents the ways in which broader prejudices of a racist society—including harsh economic exploitation and verbal abuse—can realize themselves within interpersonal and romantic relationships. In this sense, Mae is a tragic figure that experiences the burden of racism in a secondary way, as her husband releases his rage and resentment upon her through physical violence.

Mrs. Scott is the foreman at Johnson’s factory. She is a white woman who resents workers who arrive late and has very little sympathy for the grueling physical labor that the factory workers must contend with. Mrs. Scott represents the harsh economic reality for Black New Yorkers during this period, when factory workers were often at the mercy of white bosses who exploited them through long hours and little pay. Petry uses Mrs. Scott as a stand-in for white exploitative characters who benefited from Black culture and labor in 1940s Harlem. 

Mrs. Scott is a racist character who holds prejudiced views against the Black factory workers. She believes that the Black workers tend to be late and that they use made-up excuses to explain their tardiness. She sees Black people as a dehumanized homogenous group, and this is represented through her use of racist and derogatory language toward Johnson individually and toward Black people as a whole. As a white woman with a leadership position in the factory economy, Mrs. Scott also believes that she is impervious to retaliations against her racism. This becomes clear when she is shocked and afraid of Johnson’s adverse reactions to her racist slurs. When she sees the fury that she has evoked in Johnson—and when she notices his balled-up fists and his intent to strike her—Mrs. Scott immediately retracts and backs away from Johnson. She is, however, unable to issue a genuine apology for her behavior, despite the fury she evokes. She attempts to protect herself by making feeble amends to Johnson: “Aw, forget it […] I didn’t mean nothing by it” (Paragraph 37). Her calm language and retreating demeanor represent constructions of white womanhood that maintains power by presenting itself as vulnerable and unthreatening while enacting violence.

Mrs. Scott represents the racist structure of economic life in New York City, but she also serves the story as the starting point of Johnson’s fury. She sparks Johnson’s rage through her racist language, and Johnson spends the rest of his day in an angry turmoil, seeing racism everywhere he goes.