The Houseboy Narrator

791 Words4 Pages
After Pauline, the colored girl, is introduced to the story, the black houseboy narrator begins describing their relationship. The first dialogue mentioned between them is when Pauline asks him, “Can I use this phone,” to make a phone call to her black boyfriend. The narrator replies, “Sure, Madam.” The word choice chosen by the narrator, specifically the word Madam, emphasizes the class distinction between them. Madam is simply who you would call a married or mature woman possibly of higher authority. When the boy refers to Pauline as Madam, he shows his courtesy and tribute to his boss’ affair. As the house’s servant, no other word would have been acceptable. In response, Pauline claims, “Call me Pauline, I aint white.” We observe that Pauline is angered at the colored boy for demeaning himself to others by giving them total authority. When she claims so on an instinct, the reader speculates that she does not want the boy to feel inferior against her, but rather equal. She means that it was whites who the boy would have to respect, not her, with whom he shared the same race. Also, when Pauline uses the word white, the reader conjectures that the timing of the story stretches back to the days when segregation was enforced in the United States. At a time when there was no social justice or political reform, blacks and whites were separated in all matters, even through the wording they were referred by. Thus, Pauline uses the word white to emphasize that she is not one of them. The boy narrator then describes his relationship with Pauline as being swell. In the days when segregation was enforced, black people and white people had a distinct boundary between them. Rarely would they co-mingle with each other surpassing the accepted barrier. This enforced stronger relationships among people of the same colored or white race. The reader observes this strong relationship
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