Leather Shoes

 

The leather shoes in “Red Dirt Don’t Wash” represent a multitude of things: European colonization, assimilation, wealth. Most of all, they represent Adrian’s lust for Miranda, the object of his affections.

The kid vici leather is expensive—though, as Adrian notes, they should not be so costly, as goats were common in Jamaica. However, their bright shine made them desirable despite his dislike for shoes. Though they hurt his feet and he feels as if disconnected from the earth, he wears them so that he too may be desirable to Miranda.

Miranda, like the shoes, was shiny and dishonest. She tempted him, wanted him to be more than someone from the Clarendon hills. Adrian came to see her as expensive and wasteful, powdering her entire body after she bathed and taking up with several men. Ultimately, he realizes that the leather, just like Miranda, was an indulgence that would only harm him.

Miranda falls into the trope of the whore who cannot love or be loved, whose promiscuity is matched only by her cruelty. This inability created a disparity between the two that could not be resolved until Adrian destroyed his leather shoes, their beauty nothing compared to the pain they caused.