The coin bank represents an exaggerated black figure that is excited to eat the coins that a white man gives him. The coin bank first appears in Mary Rambo’s house, and the narrator is offended by the bank’s stereotypical and stupid image. However, the bank truly becomes symbolic after the narrator smashes it. Try as he might to get rid of the fragments, the narrator cannot dump the bank, and it stays with him until the novel’s end. The coin bank represents the difficulty of abandoning the legacies of past stereotypes, and that all men carry the burden of history with them as they move forward.