"After You, My Dear Alphonse" Response

Author's Note: This is my response about "After You, My Dear Alphonse" by Shirley Jackson.

"After You, My Dear Alphonse" is a short story written by Shirley Jackson. The story is mainly about stereotypes, and, in this case, racism. A boy in the story brings home a friend for lunch, and the mother is being overly nice because the boy is black. She offers him multiple things like clothes, food, and other things that she thinks that he wouldn't have. She also thinks that his mom and dad have to work as laborers, and she tries to act like she pities him, even though he doesn't have anything to worry about. The mother assumes that because the boy is black, he's poor, hungry, and doesn't have enough money to buy clothing.

In the story, the friend of the little boy is named Boyd. Boyd doesn't understand why the mother keeps offering clothes, food, and other things to him. Towards the beginning of the story, the mother, Mrs. Wilson, sees Boyd carrying the wood that they got, and gets angry at her son, Johnny because he isn't carrying the wood. She thinks that Johnny is using Boyd as a 'slave' because he's black. She acts overly nice and is extra nice to Boyd by offering him a lot of food. This shows that Mrs. Wilson thinks that Boyd doesn't have enough food at his home, so she tells him to eat as much as he wants. Mrs. Wilson also offers Boyd some clothing that the family has because she thinks that Boyd's family doesn't have enough money to buy the necessities like clothing. 

These are all things that shows that Mrs. Wilson is very stereotypical and racist. She doesn't even realize that Boyd refuses the offers of food and clothing because he doesn't need it. She voices her thoughts out loud saying that she's disappointed that he's turning the offers down. People like that don't have to pity people from other races and be overly nice, because it shows how stereotypical they are.