"Erb believes that Pride is a “tormented black protagonist forced to negotiate racially separate worlds but destroyed in the effort.” The film shows Pride as a man who comes from nothing, as he was born in a brothel to an alcoholic mother.The audience is supposed to think that he is simply looking for a remedy for cirrhosis of the liver, yet he is actually trying to help and cure the “black urban underclass.” Other characters throughout the film, like Linda, see Pride as an ambitious man who wants to live like the “white professional class and forget his origins,” yet those characters do not see the internal, psychological struggle that Pride experiences throughout the film.