The Grass Is Green

Right after the narrator leaves Mr.Norton's room, who was being treated by Dr.Bledsoe, he runs into a young student who asks him to deliver a message for her boyfriend. The message, which was delivered in a secret code, was "the grass is green". The character felt insulted by her request, since it seemed foolish and obvious, while he was going through major trouble. Emerson exemplifies the narrator's cynical attitude towards the girl through the following:

The grass was green and they'd meet and she'd be sent home pregnant, but even so, in less disgrace than I..." (pg 105)

The replacement of commas for the word "and" in his reflection depict that it is his stream of counciousness, which represents that he is in a rush, anguished and lamenting his fate. By comparing the hypothetical situation of the girl being pregnant to his own condition, Emerson shows the reader how the problem with Mr.Norton has kept his mind restless, and made him feel pity for himself.

But then, I wondered what the message could possibly mean. The first thing I noticed about it, is that Emerson uses a color. Green. Ah... colors. Emerson constantly uses colors in the novel as symbols, like black, white, golden and, in this case, green. The color green is paradoxical in the narrator's case since it is usually linked to nature and money. These two are opposites in the character's world because the nature represents the rural arrangement of the south, were black people lived and were oppressed, against the money, which was his main inspiration and goal, and which was possessed exclusively by whites.

The redundant nature of the sentence "the grass is green" is also key for the narrator's situation. It is a known fact that the grass is green, because of a green chemical called chlorophyll. The same happens with the main character who, due to a "biochemical accident to my (his) epidermis" is black (pg 3).  By having a character highlighting  the obvious color of grass, and by showing the narrator's negative reaction towards it, Emerson shows the readers how the narrator knows he is black, but he tries to ignore this obvious fact to prevent it from determining his future. Unfortunately, just as the girl mentions and notices the color of grass, white people are constantly aware of the narrator's race, and treat him as an inferior for it.