In Chapter 10, the narrator uses graphic imagery (quoted and discussed below) to describe a lynching he witnessed. This imagery helps him convey a sense of pathos, convincing the reader that racial violence in the United States is intolerable:
It was over before I realized that time had elapsed. Before I could make myself believe that what I saw was really happening, I was looking at a scorched post, a smoldering fire, blackened bones, charred fragments sifting down through coils of chain, and the smell of burnt flesh—human flesh—was in my nostrils.
The "scorched post" and "smoldering fire" are visual images, but it is also easy to imagine the feeling of heat radiating from the fire. The visual image of the flames still licking at "blackened bones" as "charred fragments" of a human body disintegrate through the chain that held the man to the post is nauseating in itself, but the narrator goes on to describe the even more nauseating smell of the body burning. He describes the smell as resting "in [his] nostrils," suggesting that he will carry the smell with him when he leaves the scene. The reader, too, is left with the visceral aftereffects of imagining this scene.
After this, the narrator finally makes the choice to leave his Blackness behind and present himself as white. The horror and disgust he evokes with the imagery serve to make the reader so uncomfortable that they understand his choice not to expose himself to the risk of lynching, which was a major problem in the years following Reconstruction. White vigilantes, including members of the KKK, brutally murdered Black people in the messy aftermath of the Civil War. Lynching is such a horrible fate, the narrator suggests here, and such a threat to Black people that it might be preferable to deny one's identity than to live openly as a Black American. On top of justifying the narrator's decision, the sense of pathos also serves to convince white readers that they need to do something about the violence Black people endure in the United States. A lynching like this is so horrifying that it makes everyone physically ill, including white witnesses.
