Johnson’s Hands Symbol Analysis

Johnson’s body symbolizes everything that is natural and internal to him, and it is worth noting that from the beginning of the story, Johnson feels a profound sense of discomfort in his body due to the long hours he works (“Even now just starting his workday his legs ached”). This can be read as a kind of symbolic representation of the external world inflicting pain and unease on Johnson’s person. But more importantly, the way in which Johnson loses control of his hands over the course of the story is hugely evocative of an internal crisis of identity. Hands are a particularly important body part in literature—they often metonymically represent agency, since they are the tools with which most of a person’s actions are carried out. As the narrative unfolds, Johnson’s hands begin to feel like they’re no longer connected to his body and instead have a mind of their own, for example when he chooses not to beat the forewoman but nonetheless finds his hands primed for the action: “He felt a curious tingling in his fingers and he looked down at his hands. They were clenched tight, hard, ready to smash some of those small purple veins in her face. […] he had the queer feeling that his hands were not exactly a part of him anymore—they had developed a separate life of their own over which he had no control.” Johnson is becoming alienated from his own body and his own sense of agency, due to the powerlessness of his position as an African American man in this society. His hands, representing his agency, no longer feel like his own by the end of the story: “He had lost all control over his hands.” It’s at this point that his hands turn on him completely, viciously beating his wife Mae in a way that Johnson once swore he could never do.