Symbolism In Mildred D. Taylor's Roll Of Thunder Hear My Cry

In the book “Roll of thunder hear my cry”, Mildred D. Taylor uses symbolism to provide context, and background information of the how their community is, and who the Logan’s fit in it. A great example when the author provides context and background information would be the fig tree. When the author is describing the fig tree, she describes it as “It keeps on blooming, bearing good fruit year after year, knowing all the time it’ll never get big as them other trees.” (pg 206) The author is trying to describe how the Logan family fits in in the community. Knowing that the Logan family owns land, and that they are the only black family that owns land; we can assume that what she means by “knowing all the time it’ll never get big as them other trees.”, the other trees that

Symbolism shows up again later on in the book providing context/background information as they cross the Soldier’s Bridge. The symbolism that shows up here isn’t exactly the Soldier’s Bridge, but how people were identified based on if they had a car, what type of car they had, and what color they were. An example of this is the Soldier’s Bridge. “More than once when I had been in the wagon with Mama or Big Ma, we had to back off the bridge when a white family started across after we were already on it.” (pg 138) This quote gets us to know how equality is in the book. From this quote we can get that white people have an advantage, and black people have to be patient enough to see how they are being treated by having to wait for the white people to pass when they are the ones who got to the bridge first. The cars show/represent how they fit in the line of respect. It is known in the book for the characters, that if you are black you are likely to not own a car, but maybe a wagon; if not, then you go around on your