For Mama, the grain silo represents the promise of a better future. This was her motive for coming to Oklahoma City in the first place, as part of the Great Migration. But it got snatched away from her when her husband died. Now, she is again seeking a better future by leaving the city with her children. Curiously, this is the first time in the story that the reader actually hears James’s name—until this point, Ellison just refers to him as “the little boy.” This reflects the way that, in all of the stories in this book, Ellison begins
in medias res, revealing crucial context gradually so that his readers only grasp the true significance of the story’s setting once they are already partway through it. Finally, Mama’s comments about James’s newfound responsibilities underline how Daddy’s death effectively cuts his childhood short—which is a metaphor for the way that racism denies Black children a true childhood.