Griffin Building Symbol Analysis

The Griffin Building is a 12-story building in the unnamed town in South Carolina where Cora lives in the dormitories. It is the tallest building Cora has ever seen, and one of the tallest in all of the South. Mr. Anderson, Cora’s employer, works in the building managing cotton contracts. Hospital administration takes place in the building and records are also kept there, with files for all of the black dormitory residents. When Cora takes the Anderson children to visit their father, she is stunned by her ride in the elevator, although the children are used to it and pay it no mind. Due to its size and high-tech features, Griffin symbolizes modernity, progress, and the future. The vision of the future that Griffin represents is one of bureaucracy, capitalist wealth, and scientific research. The residents of the town are proud of this vision, believing that Griffin symbolizes their achievements. However, as the novel shows, there is a very dark underside to these aspects of modernity. Bureaucratic laws and record keeping allow the state to maintain control over black people, and the profits made in the South are produced through the exploitation and brutality of slavery. Furthermore, the medical research conducted on black people at the hospital is done without proper consent. Griffin thus comes to symbolize the way in which American progress and modernity is constructed through violence against the black population.