Black Boy by Richard Wright

In Richard Wright’s novel, Black Boy, Richard is struggling to survive in a racist environment in the South. In his youth, Richard is vaguely aware of the differences between blacks and whites. He scarcely notices if a person is black or white, and views all people equally. As Richard grows older, he becomes more and more aware of how whites treat blacks, the social differences between the races, and how he is expected to act when in the presence of white people. Richard, with a rebellious nature, finds that he is torn between his need to be treated respectfully, with dignity and as an individual with value and his need to conform to the white rules of society for survival and acceptance.

“Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.” –Richard Wright, Black Boy. The author suffered and lived through an isolated society, where books were the only option for him to escape the reality of the world. Wright wrote this fictionalized book about his childhood and adulthood to portray the dark and cruel civilization and to illustrate the difficulties that blacks had, living in a world run by whites.

In his autobiographical work, Black Boy, Richard Wright wrote about his battles with hunger, abuse, and racism in the south during the early 1900's. Wright was a gifted author with a passion for writing that refused to be squelched, even when he was a young boy. To convey his attitude toward the importance of language as a key to identity and social acceptance, Wright used rhetorical techniques such as rhetorical appeals and diction.

Richard Wright uses language in his novel, Black Boy, as a source to convey his opinions and ideas. His novel both challenges and defends the claim that language can represent a person and become a peephole into their life and surroundings. Richard Wright uses several rhetorical techniques to convey his own ideas about the uses of language.

Richard Wright was born after the Civil War but before the Civil Right Era. If he were writing an autobiography titled Black Boy Today (2016) about a black boy growing up in the United States, he would write about racial profiling against blacks, the wide education gap between black and white, and the unequal job opportunities for blacks.

Growing up in Mississippi in 1908, a southern state with extreme discrimination and segregation, Richard Wright went through many tough times living there as a young, black man. He was constantly insulted, looked down upon, beaten, and was threaten many times simply due to the color of his skin. However, through the darkest days of his life, he read books and obtained knowledge on the controversial topics of racism. As he grew older, he was determined to become a writer no matter what people say. He wrote his own autobiography, Black Boy, to express his life struggles and hopefully influence the minds of his readers, who went through extreme discrimination, to speak up for themselves. Even though that racism was harsh and intense in the mid 1900s, through the Civil Rights movements, racism was softened and many barriers, that prevented blacks from doing what they wanted have been removed. If Wright was to write a book in 2018, he would write about the violence of police brutality, black’s unemployment rate, and the first black president that marked a huge victory against racism.

Richard Wright’s autobiographical novel, Black Boy, illustrates his character development. He encounters a lot of hardships which he eventually grows from. Throughout the course of the story, Richard develops from an oblivious young boy to a responsible young adult.

If Wright was to write Black Boy today, he would examine the phenomenon of racial profiling because it is one of the most serious and longstanding issue in today’s society. Many blacks are being targeted for suspicion of crime, and in some cases, murdered by a law enforcement officials because of their race. On August 9, 2014, a white police officer named Darren Wilson shot an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown multiple times in Ferguson,

Though his education is ruined and disrupted, Richard seems not to give up. Instead, he is more strong and ready to conquer all his life’s challenges. In Richard’s life, the hardest challenge is racism, and it is a problem among many other black people during that period. Black Boy, however, discovers racism not only as a loathsome belief held by hateful people but also as an insidious challenge that has fabric roots in the society. For Richard, he discovers that the challenge of racism does not simply exist but its roots are so deep in the American culture.

In Black Boy the main character Richard, is mistreated for the color of his skin. He had been mistreated all his life growing up. At the age of four he had burned down his grandma’s house. His mother beat him near to death for something he did not know he was doing as a CHILD! His family had moved and at the age 12 he found out what racism

The entirety of the novel Black Boy by Richard Wright is composed of scenes that are meant to strike the audience. Whether it be through a stark use of pathos or a technical use of logos, each scene is calculated. However, two scenes tend to stick out in the mind’s eye. They specifically offer an extra sense of reality to the already raw story that is presented. As a well-known author, Wright employs language in order to get his stories across.

     Richard Wright's novel Black Boy is not only a story about one man's struggle to find freedom and intellectual happiness, it is a story about his discovery of language's inherent strengths and weaknesses. And the ways in which its power can separate one soul from another and one class from another. Throughout the novel, he moves from fear to respect, to abuse, to fear of language in a cycle of education which might be likened to a tumultuous love affair.

In the books Black Boy by Richard Wright and The Color Purple by Alice Walker, both main characters are faced with the struggles of being abused, living in poverty, and being racially criticized and segregated, all while trying to find themselves.

Throughout the book Black Boy by Richard Wright sheds light on the interesting life of the writers personal memories. Richard is living in a community coming out of slavery as a first generation feeling freedom. His life starts off at a young age and spans through till his days as a successful writer. Many motifs throughout his life repeats in his writing topics. During his years fire is a common perspection expressed in many metaphorical ways and physical, this expression extends to his educational, religious, and psychological mindsets.

Black Boy is a denunciation of racism and his conservative, austere family. As a child growing up in the South, Richard Wright faced constant pressure to submit to white authority, as well as to his family’s violence. However, even from an early age, Richard had a spirit of rebellion. His refusal of punishments earned him harder beatings. Had he been weaker amidst the racist South, he would not have succeeded as a writer.