Say Yes

Dirt and cleanliness are mentioned throughout the story. In the beginning, the husband and wife are doing dishes. As their argument intensifies, Ann washes dishes quickly causing them to be “greasy” with “flecks of food between the tines of the forks” (1). Her husband becomes angry with her and drops them back in the sink, saying “these are dirty” making the water “flat and gray” (2). The couple’s conversation about race mirrors their act of cleaning in the kitchen. America’s racial history often associates cleanliness and purity with whiteness whereas Blackness has always been equated to dirt or impurity. The husband’s belief in racial purity is mirrored in his treatment of the “mutts,” or mixed-breed dogs; much like he considers an interracial marriage as less desirable, he considers the mixed-breed dogs a nuisance and usually throws rocks at them. His decision to change this behavior marks a change in his perspective.

As Ann embraces interracial marriage, her cleaning becomes more careless. After she asks her husband if he would marry her if she were African American, the husband feels compelled to clean the whole kitchen by himself so it looks the way it did “before they had ever lived there” (3). It serves has the husband’s way of clearing the kitchen of the argument, but also clearing the house of Blackness and the thought that his wife could ever be Black.