feel, was his way of getting back at her. Julian does not like his mother. To him she is an embarassment, a burden and backwards to his new way of thinking. He himself, has learned to recognize racism, and argues against it. However, when his mother is the instigator, the issue becomes more personal, and he defends her. Some how like picking on my baby brother it is alright, but when someone else does it offends me. Julian does take into account that he is educated and presumes himself to be opposite of his mother, but he finds that it is not true, and he remains a racist. Instead of confronting this as a problem, he seeks to belittle his mother. When the Negro women enters the bus, he wishes she would sit beside his mother in order to disturb her. "He could think of no better arrangement" (347). Yet "to his annoyance, she squeezes herself into the seat next to him" (348). His lack of insight regarding their relationship is revealed when he fantasizes himself presenting his mother with a black acquaitance: either a business associate, a lover or even the doctor he could hire to heal her. When he asks the man with the paper for a light (he has nothing to smoke), embarrassing himself solely to perplex her. He remains a racist not because it was instilled in him by his mother, but because he continues to exploit the black culture for the sole purpose of changing his mother. Julian's culture in his own mind fails because it does not touch his being. Julian, a grown man, still lives at home without the slightest notion of what it means to be independent or to even have a job. He is withdrwn from society. His ethics pertaining to equalities that are not put to the test among society, leaving him as out of touch with society as his mother.Julian's confusion about his life is blamed on his mother. His hatered for her "gives" him a reason to be a crtical, self-loathing person. Having the ability to tell right from wrong does not assist him in an...
