Most Sweet It Is

Oh, Ellison

“He seems in a confounded hurry,” said Doctor Kemp, “but he doesn’t seem to be getting on. If his pockets were full of lead, he couldn’t run heavier.” (Ellison, 78)

The former quotation caught my attention for two reasons. first, i really liked how Ellison applies dramatic irony, since Doctor Kemp doesn't know that his theory of why Marvel is acting such way is actually very close to what is going on. Marvel’s pockets are in fact full of "lead";money. the usage of metonymy also interested me while i read the sentence. "Lead" is used to represent money. It's not that someone would actually shove pieces of lead sticks in their pockets. This was a fun sentence to read where Ellison provides his readers a lot to think of. 

Whiteness

In Ellison's novel, the color white contains a meaningful message behind it. It strongly suggests the importance and the powerfulness of being white. Through the constant mentioning of the color, Ellison invites his reader to connect with the protagonist by perceiving the "honor" of being white. Ellison contrasts both ethnical races as one being joyful and the other one quite pessimist. "Photographs of men ad women... dressed in black, dusty clothing, people who seemed almost without individuality, a black mob that seemed to be waiting, looking with black faces, and among them the inevitable collection of white men and women in smiles, clear features, striking, elegant and confident." (39) As soon as one reads this, or at least I felt it that way, you kinda lean towards the color white rather than the color black; which is exactly what the protagonist is doing. It feels as if being white will lead you to happiness and "smiles". Ellison does a great job in transmitting this feeling through his work. For example, he creates the notion that white will lead us to a happy ending by describing how we follow the "white line dividing the highway" in order to keep us in and to guide us to the right path. By using metaphors and imagery like these, Ellison makes way for his readers to become closer to his characters.