Young Richard Wright

“What is a rebel? A man who says no.” (Albert Camus, The Rebel) Black Boy is more than a mere autobiography, dealing with a man during the time of Jim Crow laws. Indeed, though the book is generally advertised as such, the greater theme here is not of the black man versus the white; it is of Richard’s fight against adversity, and the prevalent and constraining attitudes of not just his time, or the “White South”, but of the attitude of conformity throughout all time. Richard develops from birth to become a nonconformist; a rebel, and we can see this attitude throughout his whole life. As a child, he refuses to simply follow orders if they make no sense to him; for this, he is lashed repeatedly. As he grows older, he begins

As Wright continued working, his “Jim Crow education” resumed (253), he learned that not listening to or obeying what a white person told you would lead to serious consequences. A lady was beat up by two white men simply because she didn’t pay her bills, “I heard shrill screams coming from the rear of the store. Later the woman stumbled out, bleeding, crying, and holding her stomach” (253). And if the beating wasn’t enough, a white cop was there waiting for her when she came out and she was thrown into his car after being accused of being drunk. After telling his friends about the horrendous incident, they weren’t shocked. In fact, they were surprised that that’s all they did to her and actually

Richard Wright also used many forms of diction in Black Boy. In the second passage, Wright used varying forms of language, switching between colloquial, or formal style of writing, and popular style, used in dialogue. For example, when describing what some of his childhood friends said about a church revival he switched from coloquial style to popular style: “We don’t holler and moan in church anymore. Come to church and be apart of the community.” From switching between the two styles, Wright allows the reader to almost hear the accents of the people speaking. Wright also used strong verbs in the second passage to describe his reluctance in attending the revival. For example, verbs like “starved,” “seduced,” and “allowed” all convey Wright’s desire to be associated with people, while verbs like “persuade” and “begged” illustrate his great reluctance at joining the church. Wright’s

Undoubtedly, Richard Wright was a patient who was anything but stagnant. Almost every aspect of the youth was fickle, especially the world surrounding him. However, there was one significant feature of Richard that was not prone to transition: his frame of mind. After my first session with Richard, I perceived almost instantaneously that Richard was the sufferer of major depressive disorder. On the disposition spectrum, Richard lingered at the bottom with perpetual melancholy. His frame of mind was virtually static, with episodes of mania and normal mood few and far between. I took Richard under my wing with the sole intention of helping him contend with this monster of the human psyche. Let us review the progress Richard and I have made in that psychological strife.

Indentured slave, Richard Frethorne in his letter to his parents, suggests that using rhetorical précis like pathos to makes the audience feel bad for him or sympathize with him is extremely effective. He supports his claim by first using imagery of stories to get an emotional reaction out of his parents,then explaining that people are willing to lose a limb for food, then by saying that if two strangers didn't help him he would have died, and finally telling his parents that they can help his grief and if they love him they would help. Richard Frethorne’s purpose is to persuade his parents with emotion in order to get money, freedom, or food. Richard uses his experiences and imagery to provoke an emotional response out of his parents. The first instance of this is Richard’s

Wright uses violent and fearful diction to inform the readers that conforming would result in physical or mental death. While thinking about the options he was in the South he said, “I could fight the southern whites […] If I fought

Richard was born, raised, and grew up in a difficult period of life. However, when Wright was sixteen, a short story of his was published in a Southern African American newspaper. After leaving high school, Wright worded a few odd jobs, but still showed his true love for writing. In 1927, Wright decided to pack up his belongings and head to Chicago. A short ten years later, Richard moved to New York City, where he was told it would be easier getting published. One year later, Wright’s first book was published. Since then, Wright has wrote a number of books, series and short stories until he died in 1960. With that being said, Richard Wright’s short stories, The Man Who Was Almost A Man and Big Boy Leaves Home were both written to show what coming with age and responsibility truly mean.

"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

Racism is the most ubiquitous theme present in Native Son because it was written in a time when racial inequality was pervasive in everyday life. There was a large disparity in wealth between whites and blacks simply because whites were given more opportunity in the middle and upper class job section around the country, especially Chicago. The large disparity in wealth is best exemplified when Bigger first walks into the white society where:

In this short story, it is clarified that Richard Wright's editorial on racial connections amongst white and dark individuals amid the day and age this story was composed was not one of uniformity. This is clarified in David's way to deal with a white possessed shop. Richard Wright expressed, "He felt extremely sure until he saw fat Joe stroll in through the back entryway, then his bravery started to overflow"

In the rural south Richard Wright is experiencing racism and witnessing violence because of race. In the 1920’s, race was a major factor in the way you grew up and how you were treated. As an African American boy he would be denied certain rights which caused him to become angry, among other things. When Richard gets mad or feels threatened he displays behavior that is seen as unacceptable. He is constantly being exposed to racism and violence so much that he is becoming influenced to display that behavior with people around him.

starts school, which he begins at a later age than other boys because his mother

Since Richard exited his mother’s womb, he had to undergo bigotry and unseen detestation from white southerners because of his color (Hart 35). Starting his first day of life on September 4, 1908, Richard Wright overcame several impediments and later became one of the first famous African-American authors. The Wright family lived in Natchez, Mississippi, and his parents worked, during his toddler years. Nathaniel Wright, Richard’s father, was a sharecropper. He labored for the rich plantation owners, while Richard’s mother was a school teacher. (Shuman 1697)Because of the constant beatings, Wright was obedient to all types of authority but anxiety and distrust formed in his mind. Richard unintentionally set his grandparents’ house

Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son, depicts the life of the general black community in Chicago during the 1930’s. Though African Americans had been freed from slavery, they were still burdened with financial and social oppression. Forced to live in small, unclean quarters, eat foods on the verge of going bad, and pay entirely too much for both, these people struggled not to be pressured into a dangerous state of mind (Bryant). All the while, they are expected to act subserviently before their oppressors. These conditions rub many the wrong way, especially Bigger Thomas, the protagonist of the story. Though everyone he is surrounded by is going through all the same things that he is, growing up poor and uneducated has made Bigger angry at the whole world. You can see this anger in everything he does, from his initial thoughts to his final actions. Because of this, Bigger Thomas almost seems destined to find trouble and meet a horrible fate. Wright uses these conventions of naturalism to develop Bigger’s view of the white community(). With all of these complications, Bigger begins to view all white people as an overwhelming force that drags him to his end. Wright pushes the readers into Bigger’s mind, thoroughly explaining Bigger’s personal decay. Even Wright himself says that Bigger is in fact a native son, just a “product of American culture and the violence and racism that suffuse it” (Wright).

In Richard Wright’s Native Son, Bigger Thomas attempts to gain power over his environment through violence whenever he is in a position to do so.