Recently retiring from his college life, Julian currently resides with his mother, selling typewriters to others, all the while wishing for a sinecure in the field of writing in which he would be able to put such typewriters to good use. Although Julian lives with his obsequious mother, he experiences pain when aiding her with common activities of a non-daily ritual. A particular instance involved Julian physically taking his mother to one of her reducing classes, basically the "Weight Watchers" of today. While on this endeavor, Julian feels the need to both internally and externally mock his mother, at one point remarking on her lilliputian stature with much cynicism. Such behavior greatly implies how Julian feels that he is of a erudite status due to his college education, which is quite ironic based on his current residency with his mother, his lack of a promising occupation, and the mere fact that he is mocking a woman, his mother, in a child-like manner. Ignoring such behavioral contradictions, Julian's malicious nature goes much farther than such snooty remarks.
Currently stationed on a bus towards their destination, Julian suddenly obtains the urge to greatly anger his mother, noting that her physical destruction would be taking it too far. Due to the era of racism in which Julian's mother used to live, Julian decides to strike in such an area, particularly when an African American woman enters with her youthful son. Hoping to create a strenuous situation for his mother, Julian mentally begs for this woman to sit close to him and his mother. When such does happen, Julian plan begins to backfire, for his mother becomes intrigued and delighted by the young African American boy, but such contentment does not last.
Upon Julian and his mother's departure from the bus, which occurs simultaneously for the African American woman and her son, Julian's mother attempts to give the young boy a penny for his "cute" behavior. Defying the warnings from Julian, Julian's mother continues to do so, until the African American boy's mother yells at Julian's mother with much hatred and contempt in her voice. Julian's mother inadvertently freezes in place, stunned by the recent happenings. Almost delighted at the sight, Julian explains that racism is gone, the world is not as it used to be, which is why her "condescending penny" was not well-received. Along with such remarks, Julian expresses that his mother is not the person that she used to be, especially within this "new world", which most likely refers to the idea that Julian's mother is no longer the superior white woman that she has known herself to be. Once such ideas permeate through Julian's mother's mind, Julian's mother begins to both mentally and physically break down. Falling to the ground, Julian's mother screams those who she used to know and converse with in the past, and eventually dies having those people's names entail her final utterances.
It is possible that due to such a traumatic event and proceeding realization, the excitement may have overwhelmed Julian's mother physically, thus causing her life to come to its tragic end. Although such is a possibility, there is also the idea that since she realized that the "old world" in which she knew best, one racially based, was no longer existent, maybe Julian's mother felt that her own existence was no longer necessary. Or could her death be explained by a combination of both scenarios? Possibly, Julian's mother lost "herself", her true self, and then she lost her physical placement, location at the time, thus all of this disorientation caused her to panic, raising her blood pressure, and unfortunately pass away.
Even though its reason is still unsure, Julian's mother did pass away at that time, contradicting Julian's original goal of "torture" for his mother, ultimately causing him to feel great heartache and grief, for he aided in his mother's death - an act frowned upon by any type of society.
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