Johnson uses the imagery and metaphor of African Americans being "treated like animals" and "animals being burned alive" to show how African Americans are classified. This presents the idea that African Americans are degraded and treated at the level of animals, which reinforces the narrator's decision to abandon his identity as an African American. This comparison with animals relates to the general idea of ​​categorization presented throughout the novel. While working as a stripper in a cigar factory in Jacksonville, the narrator states, "The colored people may be said to be roughly divided into three classes, not so much with respect to themselves as with respect to their relations with the whites" (35) . This idea of ​​categorization “with respect to their relationships with whites” is degrading the African American race as it highlights the problems that “colored” people display in the eyes of whites. Categorizing the African American race and comparing it to animals gives the narrator the desire to abandon his identity as a "colored" man as he tries to avoid struggling in society and passing as such..