West, Dorothy. "The Typewriter." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 501-09. Print.
Despite this short story being writing in the early years of the Harlem Renaissance, I’m not sure I understand why it is included in this anthology. The family is presumably black, but the experience in this story could have been had by any low-income family. However, I guess that the point being made is that life for black families, even in the North, was extremely difficult. So difficult, in fact, that the main character in this story ends up losing his mind from the stress.
I’m fond of the ambiguous ending, where it is unclear whether the actual character of the unnamed protagonist or his fictional alter ego “dies” in the end. I prefer to think that the alter ego dies, symbolically killing off any hope the poor man has of bettering his life and being a successful businessman. Although it is dark, it isn’t as sad as the notion of his death and the subsequent hardship his family would encounter because of it. Like I said, though, I don’t know what this story is trying to say about racial inequality or the themes common in the other works from the Harlem Renaissance. I did enjoy it, though.
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