The Hull Case

After reading "The Hull Case", I found this story to be really interesting. Bessie claims that she spotted a UFO in the sky and then her and her husband were abducted by aliens. Do we know if she is telling the truth? Do aliens really even exist? Was this all a dream she had? We will never know as readers, but will have to continue to speculate and wonder as we read the story. Another thing that is interesting about this story is that many motifs arise as the story is read. One big motif throughout the whole story is the motif of colors. The story begins with Bessie telling the colonel that whatever she saw in the sky had blue lights. She then goes further than that and adds that the lights she saw were not only blue but baby blue. However, Bessie claims that she could swear the lights were that of a UFO while Bernie claims the lights were of a cop car. Bernie keeps repeating the phrase, "He thought the lights were a cop at first" which indicates that he was scared and uncomfortable with the situation. However, we do not know for certain what the blue light could have been, although it could have been any of these things. To me, this situation is really ironic because when we think of the color blue, we usually think of peace, tranquility, being calm, harmony, unity and so much more, but in Bernie's situation, the color blue was associated with fear and anxiety.
Another two colors that arise throughout the story, are the colors black and white. On the drive back from Niagara Falls, Bessie and Bernie had already been stopped once and encountered a cop. The cop came to the car and shone the flashlight in both Bernie's and Bessie's face to make sure everything was okay. When the light was shone on each of their faces, Bernie's face revealed black, and Bessie's face revealed white. The officer asked if there was any trouble and Bessie answered back "not at all officer." During the time when Bessie was talking to the officer, Bernie was gripping the steering wheel as hard as he could. This indicates that he was very scared and very afraid. When we usually think of the word black, we think of dark, fear, evil, etc. Bernie's emotions, and the color black, definitely go together 100 percent in this situation. Bernie was not only feeling like the color black, but it was the color his skin represented. On the other hand, Bessie was feeling no fear at all. She was feeling like the color of her skin: white. The color white is usually associated with: purity, simplicity, innocence, etc. Bessie was not scared or worried about the situation at all with the cop. She was staying calm, and knew she was innocent. She knew she did not do anything wrong, and that there was nothing to be worried about. Her and Bernie in this scene were feeling totally opposite with the colors. You could almost compare the colors of who they are and how they felt to night and day. Bessie would represent day with feeling calm, while Bernie would represent night with feeling uptight.
Another thing that caught my eye was the time period this was written in. Peter Ho Davies wrote "The Hull Case" in the early 1960s. What I find interesting about this, is that in his story he picks two characters who are racially different. One is black and one is white. I did not think back then interracial marriage was very common or popular. I thought people would often look down upon you and in fact make fun and discriminate against you. I just found that really shocking because of the time period it was written in.