Response to Like a Winding Sheet

Response to “Like a Winding Sheet” by Ann Petry
The short story “Like a Winding Sheet” by Ann Petry opens with a young African American man reluctant to get out of bed for his night shift.   We are introduced to his lovely wife, who is portrayed as affectionate and silly.   The impression is that the two, Johnson and Mae, have a healthy marriage and a good friendship.   Though Mae doesn’t want to leave the house because it is Friday the 13th, Johnson is able to gently coax and persuade her to go to work.   He does this because “he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her roughly or threaten to strike her like a lot of men might have done.   He wasn’t made that way” (843).  
As Johnson arrives late to his night shift, he is confronted by the female foreman, who calls him get mad…You got the right to cuss me four ways to Sunday but I ain’t letting nobody call me a nigger” (844).   The woman backs off and apologizes, telling Johnson to get to work.   Unfortunately, Johnson replays this scene in his head over and over during his shift, forcing himself to swallow his anger because “he couldn’t bring himself to hit a woman” (844).   However, instead of letting his anger go and focusing on his work, Johnson imagines what it would have felt like to hit her.   He imagines hitting her so hard that he could have “cracked her narrow lips wide open with just one blow” (845).  
Later on, after his night shift has finished and he is on his way home, Johnson stops to get a cup of coffee.   However, as he reaches the front of the line the coffee has run out and the young girl at the cashier says “No more coffee for a while” (846) with a little flip of her hair.   Johnson seems to think that she won’t give him coffee because he’s black, when really it seems like the coffee has just run out and they have to make more.   Also, he takes great offense to her little flip of the head, seeing it as “expressive of her contempt for him” (847).   However, as Johnson leaves the coffee shop he doesn’t see...