In her story, “Like a Winding Sheet,” Anne used the element of the plot to arrange narrative points in a way that makes the readers understand her story. She divides the story into exposition, rising the action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Anne uses exposition to provide background information about the characters and setting of the story. For instance, she reveals a character by the name of Johnson, an African-American, and his wife, Mae. We find Johnson nursing his aching leg making him feel lazy to go to work. Mae is flirting with her husband by mocking his effort to hurry for work despite the aching leg, and Johnson complains humorously (Gates and McKay 1497). The story starts by raising the action with Mae believing that the thirteenth, which is a Friday, is a bad day and does not want to go to work (Gates and McKay 1498). Johnson is not for the idea of her staying at home doing nothing. According to him, a payday is universally a lucky day without contradiction. After a long argument with his wife, he realizes that he is late and leaves for work. The climax of the story is when Johnson arrives at his workplace and Mrs. Scott, his boss, confronts him (Gates and McKay 1499).
Mrs. Scott does not buy his explanations and continues to scold him and, in the process, say awful words to him. Johnson feels that Mrs. Scott’s words are out of racism, and he gets angry in the process. He feels like hitting her hard but controls himself and later regrets why he did not do it. He thinks that Mrs. Scott is using unethical words to address him because he is an African-American. The story’s falling action is characterized by Johnson visiting the restaurant after a busy workday (Gates and McKay 1501). He orders a cup of coffee in the restaurant but feels that the waiter did not serve him appropriately. He believes that the servant underestimated him during the service, therefore, making him angry. He thinks that the servant did not serve him properly because he is a Negro. He feels degraded and belittled because he is an African-American and goes home an angry person. His reaching home develops the resolution of the story (Gates and McKay 1503). He analyses his wife’s words and actions and equates them to that of the restaurant’s servant who served him. He decided to express his anger by being violent to his wife.
A social behavior from the reading that exists in modern society is racism and its aftermath. History has led to black people being treated as inferior beings and has impacted significantly on their inviolability. The black people have, therefore, decided to react to the vice through violence (Lindsey 232). State officials have been criticized for promoting racism, for example, the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson (Falcon 218). Blacks see the states not to be doing anything about the vice, thus taking the law into their hands.
Works Cited
Gates, Henry Louis and McKay Nellie. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. Print.
Lindsey, Treva. “Post- Ferguson: A “Herstorical” Approach to Black Violability.” Feminist Studies 41.1 (2015): 232- 237.
Falcon, Sylvanna. “The Globalisation of Ferguson: Pedagogical Matters about Racial Violence.” Feminist Studies 41.1 (2015): 218- 221.