CL+Reader+Response+Lens-Per+1

Through the readers response lens, we saw that the ending of the story was alluded to views of Southern society of the time. The characters represent the opposite views of society at the time. Originally there was unification between black and white. However, with the conception of a child, the white man realized it would break the natural order of things. The reason being that when he walked out of the room, he felt like killing himself. He obviously felt troubled with having the child as though he had broken the unwritten laws of his time. We also felt it was very disturbing that Paulus would be willing to kill his own child for sake of concealing his shame.