Big Boy Leaves Home

The sound of passing trains punctuates and heralds several key moments in “Big Boy Leaves Home,” such as just before the boys encounter Bertha and as Big Boy desperately runs for cover. The story also includes a variety of real and imaginary train imagery, and Big Boy’s flight takes place along train tracks.

The story’s train motif is an allusion to African American folk culture. Trains appear in African American spirituals and folklore, and the boys, after hearing the train whistle, chant, “This Train Is Bound for Glory,” a gospel song popularized by Black singer and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1930s (18). Historically, the Underground Railroad was a system that helped Black people escape slavery and used train metaphors as a code for the secret operation—enslaved people were “passengers,” guides were “conductors,” and safehouses were “stations” along the route. Trains generally symbolize the escape to freedom on the one hand or riding toward salvation in the afterlife on the other.

The boys have intimate knowledge of the trains that go through town; they can identify each one that passes by sound. In the first section of the story, a train goes by that’s headed north.