Gaines uses ‘safe’ to communicate Grant’s lesson to Jefferson with repetition. The denotative meaning of the word safe is “ protected from or not exposed to danger or risk, not likely to be harmed or lost.” The denotative meaning and the connotative are relatively the same to each other from dictionary to the novel. Gaines uses safe in relationship with how the white people in the town feel in their positions. The authors intent of using the word safe is to provide the lesson to the readers that when someone like Jefferson is treated like a hog, as a result of the white power, Grant wants him to know that when he becomes a man the white people will feel threatened and not protected from danger or risk from the people of color rising up against