# Snowstorm in Pittsburgh explained — Home to Harlem

> Chapter companion for Home to Harlem by Claude McKay.

## What happens

Jake arrives in Pittsburgh with his railroad crew and is immediately struck by the soot-covered, industrial atmosphere of Wiley Avenue. He quickly meets a woman at a basement eating-joint and later reunites with Ray, the Haitian waiter he met earlier. They complain about the poor conditions of the railroad quarters, which are infested with bedbugs. Ray, deeply troubled by thoughts of race and his own identity as a black man from Haiti, struggles with insomnia and eventually takes the cocaine papers he finds in Jake's coat pocket, leading to a vivid, hallucinatory dream. Jake, meanwhile, socializes with other railroad men and encounters a light-yellow waiter who introduces them to a barrelhouse speakeasy, where they drink and encounter a 'hophead' named Happy.

## Themes in this chapter

### Race and Identity

Ray's internal monologue explores the pain and complexity of racial identity, contrasting the romance of being black with the power and confidence of whiteness.

### Labor and Class

The chapter highlights the grueling and demeaning conditions of black railroad workers, who are provided with filthy, bug-infested quarters by a wealthy corporation.

### Displacement and Wandering

Jake and Ray are transient workers, moving from city to city, and the chapter captures their sense of being rootless and alienated in the industrial landscape of Pittsburgh.

## Character check-ins

### Jake Brown

Arrives in Pittsburgh, finds a woman quickly, and socializes with Ray and other railroad men, showing his adaptability and easygoing nature.

### Ray

Struggles with profound thoughts about race and identity, is disgusted by the filthy quarters, and takes cocaine to escape his tormenting thoughts.

### Happy

A 'hophead' at the speakeasy who is known for his cocaine use but remains stout and strong.

## Key lines

> So this heah is the niggers’ run,” said Jake. “I don’t like its ’pearance, nohow.

Jake expresses his immediate dislike for the black neighborhood in Pittsburgh, calling it the 'niggers' run' and noting his negative first impression.

_Jake's initial reaction to Pittsburgh's black district._

> Why should he have and love a race? Races and nations were things like skunks, whose smells poisoned the air of life.

Ray questions the value of racial and national identity, comparing them to skunks that poison the air of life.

_Ray's cynical view on race and nationality._

> It was suffering, horribly real. It seized and worried him from every angle. Pushed him toward the sheer precipice of imagination. It was awful. He was afraid. For thought was a terrible tiger clawing at his small portion of gray substance, throttling, tearing, and tormenting him with pitiless ferocity.

Ray experiences thought as a painful, terrifying force that torments him, comparing it to a tiger clawing at his mind.

_Ray's torment from his own thoughts._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/home_to_harlem_se/chapters/xi-snowstorm-in-pittsburgh
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/home_to_harlem_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/home_to_harlem_se/chapters