One of the central tensions in the story is the conflicting definitions of race. The husband believes race to be immutable. For him, it is a firm barrier, which denies people of two different races mutual understanding. He claims he has “always gotten along just fine” with Black Americans but believes them to be foreign since “a person from their culture and a person from our culture could never really know each other” (1). The use of “our,” addressing his wife, supposes an affinity with other white people. However, white is not a cultural identity, but a social identity, which includes a number of different ethnic and cultural groups. Although the husband’s ethnic origins are not stated, he does not seem to have issues with white Americans from other ethnicities, but, for him, Blackness is completely alien. However, he does mention that “foreigners” should not marry American citizens because one can’t “understand someone who comes from a completely different background” (2).

His belief in whiteness as a shared and monolithic cultural identity is shattered when his wife disagrees with him. Ann believes there can be a mutual understanding between people of different races “if they love each other” (1).