Ann Petry’s Short Story Like a Winding Sheet

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Ann Petry’s Short Story "Like a Winding Sheet"

In Ann Petry’s 1945 short story "Like a Winding Sheet,". Johnson is a black male struggling with racism and societal pressures. Johnson faces many challenges. As one reads, one cannot help but feel his anger, frustration and tenseness. Petry tells it in the following way, "The knowledge that he had struck her seeped through him slowly and he was appalled but he couldn’t drag his hands away from her face." Petry goes on further to tell us, "He had lost all control over his hands." This rage Johnson is experiencing is described as a "winding sheet".

Johnson’s everyday routine causes anger and frustration to build up inside him. Get up, go to work and come home; get up, go to work and come home. The routines...

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