" On the Road" by Langston Hughes is short story using an omniscient narrator. He shows, with symbolism, the discrimination of the white people's church against black people during the time period of the depression. Hughes uses symbols like coal, freight, stone pillars, doors and the crucifix to emphasize the discrimination shown to Sargeant, an unemployed black man.
             The exposition of the story tells about Sargeant, the protagonist, a black man who has spent time going from place to place by freight train. Hughes begins the story with Sargeant going up to the door of the Reverend Mr. Dorset. Reverend Dorset tells Sargeant that he will not help him. Reverend Dorset says, "I'm sorry. No! Go right on down this street four blocks and turn to your left, walk up seven and you'll see the Relief Shelter" (574). Sargeant says "he had already been to the Relief Shelter, been to hundreds of relief shelters during the depression years, the beds were always gone and supper was over, the place was full, and they drew the color line" (574). Hughes uses the name Dorset as a metonymy metaphor to emphasize the door being set against Sargeant. Even the clergy from the white people's church sets his whole being against helping out someone like Sargeant. Reverend Dorset would not even offer to let Sargeant warm up, or give him a bite to eat. Sargeant needs to get warm, get something to eat, and a place to sleep because he just got off of a freight train.
             Hughes most likely used the freight train as an implied metaphor of how black people are treated like freight. White people would look upon black people, like Sargeant, as things or items that are shipped from place to place and not like human beings. A significant point is that Sargeant rides on a freight train, not a passenger train. Freight trains are used to haul things, not people. Sargeant is treated like an unwanted item. Sargeant tries to ge...