Winding Sheet?

A Winding Sheet, a sheet a corpse is wrapped in for burial. This is how Mae had described her husband in bed, "You look like a huckleberry in a winding sheet" (1498). I'm gonna be honest I didn't know what that meant until I reached the end of the story. Now obviously, there is a deeper meaning here. Ann Petry, the author, names her title, starts the book and ends the book with this one phrase. Like a Winding Sheet. What is the analogy and what is the deeper meaning? Before we get into to that let me give y'all a little summary of the story.

The main character, Johnson, is in a loophole of a life. He goes to a job that he hates, which takes a beating on his legs because he never sits. He's been at the job for two years and is still not accustomed to how things work. So overtime he builds up this anger from the job that keeps boiling up. One of these day he comes in to work late, as he usually does, and his boss, which is a female, has had enough. So she has the audacity to call Johnson a nigger. This is what she says, "And the niggers are the worst. I don't care what's wrong with your legs. You get in here on time. I'm sick of you niggers" (1499). This had caused the peak of Johnson's anger, but even then he held it in. As the story continues he gets discriminated against because he was black, and yet again, keeps his anger bottled in. When he gets home to his wife, he was already annoyed, so every little thing his wife Mae did, pissed him off. So, when she calls him a nigger, "You're nothing but a old hungry nigger trying to act tough..." (1503). Johnson took out all his anger on his wife. He beat her over and over again and the story ends right there. 

No resolution and no solution, it's left for the readers to use their imagination. This story honestly scares me because it's so close to reality. Guys don't know how to handle and let out their anger, so they come home and lay all out on their wives or significant other. It just pains me to think of men treating women like that. When talking about domestic violence it gets tricky because the only solution seems to be leaving the husband. Where does that leave the husband and/or the family? The husband is still left with his anger issues and in result could harm another female. So, what's the solution? Well, the female should seek help with their significant other and help them get though their anger issues. And sometimes just talking to that significant other could make them feel better, because whatever's bottled in, they could release it through communication. Now, if they refuse help, then that's when the female should leave because she doesn't want to put her or her family's life in harms away.

I know I veered off course a little, but I had to say something. Alright back to the story. So, how does a winding sheet play into this story. At the end of the story, Ann Petry tries to explain Johnson's situation and says this, "And he groped for a phrase, a word, something to describe what this thing was like that was happening to him and he thought it was like being enmeshed in a winding sheet, that was it, a winding sheet" (1504). The author compared Johnson's beating on his wife to being tangled in a winding sheet. But, why? Here's my take on it. He's fighting himself to get out of the sheet and stop the beating on his wife, but he can't because the sheet is binding him down to this act. This is what Ann Petry says, "...he thought with horror that something inside him was holding him, binding him to this act, wrapping and twisting about him so that he had to continue it" (1504). The something (winding sheet) is a representation of  anger. Anger is holding him down and has wrapped around him like a winding sheet.

Here's another meaning take that could be put into play. When you are in a winding sheet you are covered, basically being wrapped in a blanket. So if you're tangled under a blanket your trying your best to find the end of the cover to free yourself. Racism by white supremacy kept him trapped under the sheet, he couldn't find the end of the blanket because of his repetitive encounters with racism. White supremacy represents the winding sheet. The racism built up his anger, it wound up the sheet so much he couldn't get out. Why couldn't he overcome this white supremacy and free himself? Simple, he can't control racism. So in result, the anger in Johnson reached its maximum point and was released on his wife Mae.

-Riley S.E