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Themes in Richard wright; black boy
The theme of racism in Richard Wright's Black Boy
Themes in Richard wright; black boy
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Black Boy
TITLE: Black Boy
AUTHOR: Richard Wright
INTRODUCTION OF AUTHOR: Richard Wright was born in Natchez, Mississippi.
When he was six years old, his father, Nathan Wright deserted the family for whatever reason. His mother, Ella, became the breadwinner of the family. Abandoned by her husband and unable to establish economic independence from her strict mother, Ella
suffered greatly. A strong woman who faces terrible adversity, she trained Richard to be
strong and to take care of himself. Later, the feisty, independent spirit Richard developed at home leaded him to refuse to accept the codes of behavior the white world has set for Southern blacks. When Richard finally decided to become writer, that career represented a declaration of independence from those in the black community.
PLOT SUMMARY: The opening chapter recounts Wright's early childhood in Natchez,
Mississippi, and his family's move to Memphis. It describes his early rebellion against
parental authority, his poverty and hunger, and his unsupervised life on the streets while his mother is at work. Then the Wrights move to the home of Richard's Aunt Maggie. But their pleasant life there ends when whites kill Maggie's husband. Later the threat of violence by whites forces Maggie to flee again. Richard's mother has a stroke. Richard is sent to his Uncle Clark's, but he is unhappy there and insists on returning to his mother's. Richard confronts his Aunt Addie, who teaches at the Seventh-Day Adventist church school. He also resists his grandmother's attempts to convert him to religious faith. And he writes his first story. Richard gets a job selling newspapers but quits when he finds that the newspapers espouse racist views. Later, his grandfather dies. Richard gets a job working for white people. Then he is baptized in his mother's church. Finally, he has another near-violent confrontation with a relative. Richard publishes his first story. The reaction from his family is overwhelmingly negative. Richard becomes class valedictorian. But he refuses to give the speech written for him by the principal. Richard has several terrifying confrontations with whites. In the most important of these confrontations, he is forced out of a job because he dares to ask to learn the skills of the trade. Richard learns
to steal.
The characters in this story are some very interesting people. They each lead their own way of life, and have their own interests at heart. Some of the main characters in this novel are: Sarny, Lucy, Miss Laura, Bartlett, Stanley, and Sarny's two children Little Delie, and Tyler. Sarny is the central character in this book. She is clever and knows exactly what to even in the worst of times. She is very emotional though, and can break down and cry when the slightest of things happens. This is perhaps from what she has experienced as a slave earlier on in her life. Sarny is fond of teaching people, as a friend named Nightjohn once taught her. Lucy is Sarny's close friend. She is also quite wise, but is a bit too optimistic at times. She never stops smiling and is very friendly. However, she does help Sarny find her lost children. Miss Laura is a middle-aged woman who lives a very luxurious life. She gives Sarny and Lucy a place to live and offers them employment. She also finds Sarny's children for her. Bartlett works for Miss Laura as well. He is a quiet and patient man who is helpful and quite kind. He was however castrated as a young slave boy, and cannot have children. Stanley is Sarny's second husband, for her first died from being worked to death on the plantation. Stanley is a gentle, big, fun-loving man, but is not intimidated by anything. This leads him to his death when he gets mad at a white man, and is confronted by the Ku Klux Klan. Little Delie and Tyler are Sarny's lost children. After she recovers them, and they grow up, Little Delie starts to like business, while Tyler wants to become a doctor.
Different types of literature have been part of America since the 1630’s, and the varieties of literature still exist to this day. Frederick Douglass’s work and speeches during his lifetime caught the attention of many people in the United States, including slave owners themselves. Douglass has not only changed American literature, he has also inspired many other writers and speakers to seek freedom of expression for themselves. Even though he had a rough childhood because he was a slave, Douglass found ways to make the most of it. Fortunately, it was because he had a nice and caring owner who taught him to read and write.
Ruth was being prevented from having a baby because of money problems, Walter was bringing him self down by trying to make the liquor store idea work. Once Mama decided to buy the house with the money she had received, Walter figured that he should further go on with the liquor store idea. Then, when Walter lost the money, he lost his dignity and tried to get some money from the “welcome party” of Cylborne Park. Mama forced him to realize how far he went by making him show himself to his son how low he would go. But he showed that he wasn’t susceptible to the ways the racism created.
his father left his mother and him to start another life with another family. His mother
"Whenever I thought of the essential bleakness of black life in America, I knew that Negroes had never been allowed to catch the full spirit of Western civilization, that they lived somehow in it but not of it. And when I brooded upon the cultural barrenness of black life, I wondered if clean, positive tenderness, love, honor, loyalty, and the capacity to remember were native with man. I asked myself if these human qualities were not fostered, won, struggled and suffered for, preserved in ritual from one generation to another." This passage written in Black Boy, the autobiography of Richard Wright shows the disadvantages of Black people in the 1930's. A man of many words, Richard Wrights is the father of the modern American black novel. Wright has constituted in his novels the social and economic inequities that were imposed in the 30's in hope of making a difference in the Black Community. His writing eventually led many black Americans to embrace the Communist Party.
In conclusion, an author’s writing can tell a lot about himself. The writer will tell the reader something about themselves, either through diction, syntax or by other methods. In Black Boy, Richard writes in a way that allows the reader to learn information about his life. Learning about the author through his/her writing is the best way to learn about them because this way you get to learn what author thinks about the topics that he/she are talking about.
He also used his writing to find out more about himself. he also wrote outside of prison talking about his experience as a black man in society, and also the experience as a black man in the ghetto. The book basically compares and contrast being a black man in three very different scenarios.
Within his journey he was able to learn a tremendous amount of information about himself as well as the society he lived in. Although in order for this to happen he had to exile from his former hometown. After graduating high school the narrator went off to college and had the honor of driving one of the schools founders. While driving Mr. Norton, one of the school founders, the narrator went on a tangent about different things that has happened on campus. He soon mentioned Trueblood and his actions with his daughter to Mr. Norton, Afterwards the narrator led Mr. Norton to the bar/asylum. This is when the real troubles begin. Mr. Bledsoe, the college’s president, found out about the narrators doings and expelled him. When he expelled the narrator, Mr. Bledsoe sent him to New York with seven letters to get a job. By the narrator being exiled he now has a chance to experience life on his own and use the knowledge from his experience to enrich his life and others. The narrator’s trial and tribulations will speak for the feelings and thoughts of many African Americans in the 1940s
Wright's troubled past begins as a sharecropper while only a child. His childhood remained dark and abandoned. Richard Wright's father left him and his mother while he was only a child. The several episodes of dereliction resulted in the brief introduction of the orphanage. Subsequently his mother grew ill, and he lived with his grandmother whom treated him with brutality. Shortly after, he began a journey of rebirth and renewal, from the discriminant south to an opportunistic Chicago 1927. At this point in time, Wright began to develop his works through study and reading. His many jobs gave him the wealth and experience, along with many hardships and personal encounters to write about. Therefore, in his newfound love for literature and writing, he began to establish a firm foundation for himself by publishing an increasingly large amount of poetry and writing the early versions of Lawd Today and Tarbaby's Dawn. However, his name did not only attract those who wanted to appreciate a modern style of literature that would shake that grounds of racial distortion, but also attract the prying eyes of the public whom viewed his involvements in the Communist clubs, such as the Chicago John Reed...
The Bragg family grew up with virtually nothing. The father left the family a number of times, offering no financial assistance and stealing whatever he could before he left. When he was there, he was usually drunk and physically abusive to the mother. He rarely went after the children, but when he did the mother was always there to offer protection. Mr. Bragg's mother's life consisted of working herself to exhaustion and using whatever money she had on the children.
From an early age, Frederick Douglass refused to accept the life of confinement into which he was born. The way he learned to write is a fine example of his exceptional resourcefulness and persistence to rise above. In The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Douglass's depiction of his self-education can be found on page 94...
Richard isn’t accepted by his family for some unexpected reasons. In Black Boy by Richard Wright, Richard’s family has expectations for Richard that he doesn’t follow. Ever since Richard’s father left his family when Richard was young, Richard's mother became more strict. Richard’s mom didn’t have a stable job, so they always struggled with having money. Richard is more intelligent than the rest of his family in different ways and has to work hard at a very young age to earn his cash. Richard’s mother grew ill which was traumatizing for Richard since over time he grew extremely close with her. Since his mother was ill the rest of Richard’s family had to step in and help out. Richard’s rebellious attitude does not leave him ostracized from his
Hastings County, Social Housing, “Boxed In” April 2005 (pg. 6, 7, 15, 16, 23, 24, 108) Local Sources (pg. 110-114) Retrieved from: http://www.hastingscounty.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115&Itemid=88
He recognized that the reader could perceive his story to be a rant regarding racial identity, because of the natural tendency to be self-involved. He made a point beyond this assumption and stated that simply being a person, despite his race, he was a disembodied voice. He was an individual with a story that challenged public knowledge on history. More importantly, he shamelessly revealed stories of “hope, desire, fear and hate” that defined his way of being,
In Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789 and 1794), William Blake arouses readers' minds and leads them into a path of finding their own answers and conclusions to his poems. He sets up his poems in the first book, Songs of Innocence, with a few questions as if they were asked from a child's perspective since children are considered the closest representation of innocence in life. However, in the second book, Songs of Experience, Blake's continues to write his poems about thought-provoking concepts except the concepts happen to be a little bit more complex and relevant to experience and time than Songs of Innocence.