Nobody is sure except, toward the end of the story, Nancy, who believes Jesus is lying in wait near her, ready to spring and kill her. We're told via the white family's father that a black person told Nancy that Jesus was in town, but we're told he's in Memphis or St. That, along with the threat, the razor, and the scar, make him seem fearsome.īut for the rest of the story, he doesn't show up. In other words, Jesus is harboring some understandable resentment. When white man want to come in my house, I ain't got no house.' (1.20) White man can come in my house, but I can't stop him. 'I can't hang around white man's kitchen But white man can hang around mine. 'Kitchen' is a euphemism for a woman in the following quote from Jesus: He's a threatening dude.Īfter the threat, he points out the difference between the white men's access to Nancy, a prostitute, and his. So yeah, he says he's going to lop off the father's penis. When she tells him the unborn child isn't his, he says he 'can cut down the vine it did come off of' (1.18). He says that Nancy has a watermelon under her dress (i.e., she's pregnant). Nancy is cooking for the white family, and Jesus, for some reason, is hanging out there too. Despite the rare evidence in his favor, Nancy's fear of him infects the reader-to Nancy, and to us, he's more of a nightmare figure than Freddy Krueger.Īs for Jesus' one appearance, here's what happens. Nancy says 'Jesus always been good to me' and 'Whenever he had two dollars, one of them was mine' (1.57).

On the other hand, we get some contradictory evidence about him, too. He wears a 'razor on that string down his back, inside his shirt' (1.65), ready to take it out in case he needs it to fight someone. We're told he has 'a razor scar on his black face' (1.15), quite possibly the result of fighting.

Nancy's husband only appears once in the story, but he nonetheless plays a major role in everything that goes down.

Sword of the Winds by Nancy Faulkner