To support its theme that race is arbitrary, the author often uses literary techniques such as symbolism. The author’s main use of symbolism in the story is the dusty book with which the interrogator determines the brother’s race. In the story, the interrogator says of the book “this will tell us what race you are,” as though there is a definitive, scientific way of determining someone’s race. In reality, the book represents outdated and false ideas about race, like that the race someone is assigned tells us something about them as a person. When the interrogator looks through the book, the…