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In the first sentence of Langston Hughes’ “On the Road,” we are told, “He was not interested in the snow.” It is only logical and even natural that when people are more concerned with issues of survival, external conditions become trivial and even insignificant. The statement “Sargeant never even saw the snow,” indicates a preoccupation with issues of survival, more reflective of life. The use of the term “freight” suggests movement in speed, traveling down a track to a questionable place and point in time that serves to emphasize the uncertainty that exist in the struggle for racial equity at the time. Hughes use of the sentence, “But he must have felt it seeping down his neck, cold, wet, sopping in his shoes,” communicates total helplessness and a sense of depression in the condition of the man who is oblivious to the surrounding and cannot see the white snow even under the bright lights. As Sargeant walks down the main street, we are forced to ask the question, “main street of whose life?” With the introduction of the Rev.
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