he black woman is a "ponderous figure rising" (496); Julian's mother insists that the black population should "rise, yes, but on their own side of the fence." (488) The motion of rising--notice that nothing is ever risen--represents the domination of the weak by the strong. This reverses the notion of black disempowerment: here the woman, who ultimately exercises the most power in fatally punching Julian's mother, calls attention to the exaggerated imbalance between the powerful (she herself, Julian's mother, social convention) and the powerless (her young boy, Julian, any independent thinker who might want to challenge social convention.)
Julian falsely believes that he is in the dominant position when he tries to "explain the lesson" of the refused penny. He says again, "I hope this teaches you a lesson" (499), assuming what he thinks is dominance. But he is dominated to the last, since his mother's stroke propels him into "a world of guilt and sorrow" from which h
...