In addition, the bowl that the painter leaves the composer is very interesting. The outside of the bowl is apparently beautiful and it appears to be full of rose petals. Instead, the composer finds that the bowl is full of dead bees. I find this very interesting, because it seems as if the painter has used the bowl to symbolize herself. The bowl is the outside of her body and the rose petals are clothing, but the bees are the inside. However, I do not believe that the bees symbolize her missing breasts, but the cancer that ate up part of her body. .

             However, when I rethink the bowl of bees, I think that it might not reflect the painter's self image, but actually her concept of the composer. The composer acted like he was full of something beautiful like the rose petals. However, when confronted with a difficulty, the composer's feelings wilted and died, revealing that he was actually full of something more like the dead bees. Any of his beauty was merely superficial, but there was a deep ugliness hidden inside of him. .

             While it is easy to condemn the composer for his superficiality, it is interesting to wonder why he had a problem with the mastectomy, but not the age or race differences. It is pretty clear that the difference is not because a mastectomy has an unnatural cause, but because of the very natural cause behind the mastectomy. The painter clearly had breast cancer, and I think that it is the reminder of the painter's mortality that disturbs the composer. From a distance, while falling in love with her for a week, the composer can pretend that the differences between him and the painter are unimportant. However, when dealing with a consequence of one of those differences, a disease that is more likely to afflict older people, the composer discovers that he is not capable of confronting those differences. .

             "Mommy What Does 'Nigger' Mean?" Journal Entry.

             In "Mommy, what does Nigger mean?" Gloria Naylor addresses the different meanings that the word "nigger" has when used by different groups of people.