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Chapter 8 motif

The Bible

" I was so far away from home, yet there was nothing familiar in my surroundings. Except the Bible; I picked it up and sat back on the bed, allowing its blood-red-edged pages to ripple beneath my thumb...I turned to the book of Genesis but could not read."

TIM has just arrived in Harlem and he is sitting in his hotel room reminiscing on his life back home.

TIM’s allusion to Genesis, the creation story, is symbolic of his beginning in Harlem. He was excited to get to Harlem but that he’s there he’s lonely and hasn’t done anything towards making a new beginning to himself, it’s as if he “could not read” his creation.

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