 Stacy I. Morgan claims that the tooth represents Chinatown's "fragile sense of self-esteem," and that he "fixes on the gold tooth as a way of struggling to affirm his individuality and humanity in the face of a socioeconomic system that would otherwise reduce him to a faceless sharecropper.Melody, like Chinatown, is a younger half-sibling to Big Mat.Melody's most prominent characteristic is his love for music, which is expressed through his guitar playing.