So What Are You, Anyway?

Hill’s imagery foreshadows coming events and conflicts in the short story. At the start of the narrative, Carole is lost in her own private concerns. She is “only a child,” so she is unaware of the more complex political conundrums she will face over the course of her flight (Paragraph 37). In spite of her lack of awareness, the author portends these tensions through images of her belongings and descriptions of her appearance. On the surface, these elements contribute to the story’s descriptive opening scene, which effectively sets the narrative stage. However, as the narrative unfolds, these same images recur with more fraught undertones and implications.

Each image in the opening scene foreshadows the hostility with which the Nortons will treat Carole because she is biracial. When Carole looks at herself in her mirror, she has no inclination that Henry and Betty will discriminate against her because of her appearance, her parentage, and her cultural background. When Henry holds Carole’s doll upside-down, the author foreshadows the ill treatment Carole will receive because she is a child, but it also foreshadows how her childhood innocence will be turned upside-down as she is involuntarily thrust into the reality of adulthood.