Between the World and Me

In literature, a symbol is a word or phrase that refers to a literal object which also has a meaning that extends beyond itself. In this poem, the “white bones” (Line 4) (also “dry bones” [Lines 14, 25]) and the “stony skull” (Lines 10, 25) serve as symbols. They are the most visually arresting elements of the scene the speaker stumbles upon. When the bones are first mentioned they are simply objects that lie in the clearing in the wood, but as the picture builds up, and by the time the “stony skull” (Line 10) is mentioned, it has become clear what they represent. They are both the actual remains of a human body and also symbolic of a great wrong done to an individual. They symbolize not only pain, agony, death, cruelty, and gross injustice but also a social system of segregation, racial control, and violence that permitted and encouraged such things to happen. It is appropriate, then, given the weight attached to these symbols, that the poem ends with them both, the “dry bones” and “stony skull staring in yellow surprise at the sun” (Line 25).