Imagery and Tone in Chapter 2 of Down These Mean Streets

The imagery of the cold presented in chapter 2 really caught my attention. The Thomas family lives in a broken-down apartment, comparable to the tenement Bigger Thomas and his family lived in in Native Son. Piri Thomas writes, "Momma picked up a hammer and began to beat the beat-up radiator that's copped a plea from so many beatings." (p. 9) The heat has gone out (again) in their apartment and Mama beats on the pipe to let the landlord know to fix the pipes. Soon, everyone in the whole apartment building starts doing the same. The reader can hear the beats and pings of the all the people in the building "playing their radiators" and although it seems like a party, it masks the poverty that led them to their play in the first place. When looking at this through the Marxist lens, the symbolism of the cold radiator represents heightens how impoverished the family really is. The tone of the quote is one of irony. Although the scene seems happy, why they are are beating on the radiator is not.