Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 Summary

In chapter one, dark-skinned Robert Jones wakes up with three dreams in his mind - of being offered a chained dog, of being present at a criminal investigation in which the white detectives are trying to find a crippled black man, and of seeking a job from two other white men, who mock him for not having tools. As he wakes up, he feels a now-habitual surge of anxiety and fear which he attributes to the war, to the responsibilities of his job as a leaderman, or foreman, at the shipyards, and to the intense, ever-present racism he senses all around him. His anxiety is dispelled, somewhat, as he listens as lighter-skinned Ella Mae, who is sleeping in the bedroom next door, wakes up to feed her baby, and as he thinks with pride of his strong-willed girlfriend Alice. As Jones...