Emotion and Diction in Richard Wright’s Book Black Boy

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Emotion and Diction in Richard Wright’s Book Black Boy

Throughout Richard Wright’s book Black Boy, which represented his life, Richard used great emotion to show us how he was and what he may have been feeling. He also referred the book to his own life by using examples and making them as evidence in the book. His techniques and diction in this book gave a fire to his writing and a voice towards how it was for him growing up.

Richard Wright’s main use was Pathos, which means emotion, to show us how he was feeling while he was writing this book. Was he anger or sad, excited or depressed. It all shows in his writing. I like the statement, “ Dick, look, you’re black, black, black see? Can’t you understand that?” The way he used his emotion and it was like he was using anger in his writing to make a point. By saying “Can’t you understand that?” tells me that back in this time that there is something wrong with being black unlike today. Then another way in which he introduces emotion to us is by using the italicized words. For example, now and black. Doing this to these words give in a little more flavor and excitement.

Then diction became another way in which he showed how one acts, how the scenery looks, and just describes the characters in different ways. In the statement “ He lit a cigarette and blew out smoke leisurely” gives me a sense that the guy is some heavy weighted main that does not care and does what ever his heart pleases. Then in another statement like “ Suddenly Griggs reached for my arm and jerked me violently, sending me stumbling three or four feet across pavement.” So if you were to read on you would know that he was doing that to teach Richard a lesson. But instead you got this picture in your mind of some man throwing down a child trying to hurt him. That is how strong Richard Wright’s diction is. So then when you read on it tells you that Richard is growing up and is learning about life.

Then we have the evidence in which Richard Wright used to show how he feels and what happened to him in his life. First of all what we have to remember is that this book is basically prototype to his life.

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