Analysis Of Uncle Tom's Children By Richard Wright

Uncle Tom’s Children is a book written by Richard Wright: This is Wright 's first out of twenty books. Wright uses this novel to provide clarification on African-Americans in the south. The book contains five short stories: Big Boy Leaves Home, Down by the Riverside, Long Black Song, Fire and Cloud, and Bright and Morning Star. The stories in this novel concern the lives of African-Americans and the African-Americans exploration of resistance to racism in America. Wright uses powerful diction, symbolism, and descriptive imagery to describe three major themes; racism fear, and resistance. Racism is the first major theme in the novel because the racism is shown in the novel through how the White Southerners address the African-Americans by

The diction Wright applies is very serious because “ black son of a bitch!” (Wright 31) is seen throughout the novel and shows what most African-Americans were called by white southerners and were treated bad because they were different from the white men. This diction adds to the novel because it makes the reader feel sympathy towards the African-Americans in society after the civil war. The diction he uses helps develop the theme of racism because it emphasizes how a white southerner might talk to an African-American in everyday society. Wright has most of the white people calling African- Americans “ son of a bitch niggers!” (Wright 52) because during the period,in which it was set in, many African-Americans were being discriminated by others. They were also being blamed for robberies and shootings because white southerners used them as an escape goat, which could be considered racism.For some slaves it was “we jus as waal git killed fightin as t git killed doin nothing” (Wright 163) because they were blamed for simple things or serious things like a revolt against a plantation. Most southerners tracked down their missing slave and would “put a rope around

Some slaves looked out for each other like when one got in trouble most would warn the family to “ git [em] outta here right now,... cause ef yuh don theres gonna to be a lynchin” (Wright, 43). A lynchin is another way to say execution. Wright uses imagery to emphasize the theme of fear. When a slave would run away they only worried about the mob and bloodhounds looking for them. Some slaves did not take anything with them that they could defend themselves with, but big boy realized after he left home that “ He oughta go back n git the shotgun. And then when the mob came he would take some with him” especially the bloodhounds (Wright, 46). When a bloodhound found big boys hiding spot it started to dig until “[its] green eyes were beneath him… [ while] dog nails bit into his arms”. This is an example of imagery because it uses your senses sight and touch (Wright, 58). Big boy arrived at a medical camp and walked past some white soldiers “He wanted to look around, but ...his body seemed encased in… a narrow black coffin that moved with him as he moved” (Wright, 114). This quote explains the fear of African-Americans walking near white southerners because it was either behave and survive or disobey and die. Fear was shown when big boy was at the medical camp and realized “ he had to get away from here before that white boy had the soldiers