The Bedsheet Symbol Analysis

The bedsheet in Johnson and Mae’s bedroom is a complex symbol of both their love for each other and the way that their society transforms that intimacy into something toxic. At the beginning of the story Johnson is wrapped in a bedsheet and Mae remarks that it looks “like a winding sheet.” A winding sheet is a shroud, i.e. a piece of fabric used to wrap a corpse. This is a somewhat ominous comment to make at such a casual moment, and the symbolism of sheet begins to become clear a moment later, when Johnson thinks about how dark his skin looks against the white sheet. Later, that same image of a winding sheet takes on a horrible kind of resonance as the story draws to a close. In the act of beating Mae, likely to death, Johnson feels trapped, as if he is no longer in control of his own body, and he describes the feeling as like being “enmeshed in a winding sheet.” While Mae may literally be dying, Johnson feels as if the societal pressures which weigh on him are slowly paralyzing him and preparing him for death as well, as if he is being suffocated by the knowledge of his own oppression. The bedsheet they share, a symbol of the intimate relationship between them, thus becomes a symbol of death and is ultimately transformed into a symbol of a society that slowly murders its most vulnerable members—in part by turning them against the ones they love.