The title itself sparks curiosity and hints at the events in the story. In the Old Testament, Hagar was a slave and the founder of Arabs—dark skinned people—who was cast out of the kingdom. Therefore, this story involves her children and all that happens to them.
While it is normal to read a short story with one plot, Edward P. Jones has elected to tell four all within the same story. These multiple plotlines create echoes throughout the story and makes the work multidimensional:
- The narrator investigates Ike’s murder
- The narrator and his relationship with Sheila
- The narrator and his presence at the death of Miriam Sobel, a white woman
- The past event in Alabama concerning his mother, Aunt Agatha, and Aunt Penny
These four plotlines are linked to each other and reveal to the narrator the actions women must take to protect themselves against male violence. It also shows us the narrator’s misunderstanding of women; he never looks farther than their job position as a secretary or them being a mother. This is interesting as his only interactions in this story are with women.
The last paragraph is a resolution for the narrator. For the first time he wonders what a woman is thinking when he pays attention to the six school girls walking down the street; he realizes that they have a complicated inner life. Furthermore, he realizes that the incident with Sheila—she didn’t notice him when she walked past him on the street—showed him that he wasn’t the center of her world as he had implied throughout the story. He further wonders what Ike had done to Alona that forced her to kill him. He understands this action was Alona’s only option and he now considers the inner harm that Ike inflicted on her. In addition, he acknowledges that women have more going on in their lives than just children and men. He had been oblivious to the harm men have done to women and resolves to stay with all the women who care about him.