At the beginning of the story, we see the appearance of Doby in Sue’s family. Sue is a little girl, but she has no friend at her age to play with. So she creates Doby, an imaginary friend, and follows her everywhere. In the meantime, Sue’s mother wants Doby disappeared before Sue starts school. She accepts Doby because Doby is a symbol of loneliness, innocence like Sue. Moreover, Sue is a lonely girl, she does not know about the world around her. So Doby is safe for her to play with.
The next thing that the author mentions about is a racial difference. When the story begins, we do not know Sue’s racial until she goes to school. She does not think about her skin color, it seems to be normal to Sue. This fact shows that Sue is not prepared how the society is complicated. She does not understand the world she is living in. In the other hand, at school the children keep shouting her “legs are black”, chasing her, pushing her, and pulling her hair. Sue cannot play with anyone. It shows that she is outraged. The only way she can get the children’s respect is to fight for it, and she has to protect herself.
Right at the moment Sue fights with the children, Doby disappears. She lost her imaginary friend. At this point, the author wants to tell the readers that Sue transforms from a little girl to a young girl. “She decided it probably had something to do with growing up”, so Doby is no longer in her mind. She knows Doby is most unlikely to return because he has “never left her before.”
Throughout the story, the author wants to tell us about the relationship between Sue and her imaginary friend, the racial difference, and the moral of respecting people. The author