Rhetorical Techniques in Richard Wright’s Black Boy Essay

Throughout his essay, Baldwin makes numerous use of italicize words or sentences to state a strong fact that he agrees with or deems important to readers. By italicizing that “Negroes want to be treated like men”, Baldwin clearly states his position. The extent, to which he uses this writing technique, signifies that he not only speaks for himself but also for his Community, Harlem. Aside from using italics Baldwin makes use of lengthy sentences, that are sustain with breaks such as hyphens and dashes, and a tone of sarcasm to affirm his position in the matter. He goes into hesitations when writing the lengthy sentences by including the dashes, which suggests that he is not only sustaining his position but also indicating that he has an experienced idea of what he is expressing. Baldwin`s degree of sarcasm in the opening paragraphs, is used to give an idea of how poorly their environment is but more over to show the insignificance that their environment has on others and their lack of attempt to “rehabilitate” it.

The idea of relating public and private events in Baldwin’s own experiences is instituted later in the essay in order to transition from narrative to analysis. Baldwin started telling a story about when he lived in New Jersey before the time of his father’s death. He talked about his personal treatment by white people in the south, a first hand account of the racism of that particular era. He learned of the hostility of the Jim Crow Laws inflicted on African Americans during that time period. His story was analogous to nearly all African Americans at that point. When Baldwin lived in New Jersey, he became exposed to the racism of the south that occurred in restaurants and diners. During one of those experiences he wrote, “I

“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.

Personal stories and descriptions of major events are narrated throughout James Baldwin’s works as he analyzes the nature of the relationship between white and black America. The marriage of narration and analysis are especially evident in Baldwin’s essay, “Notes of a Native Son.” As Baldwin describes his father and their relationship until his father’s death, he simultaneously comments about the relationship between white and black America. Baldwin compares the events of his experience with concurrent American events to conclude about the nature of his personal relationships and the relationship between races; namely, that one must come to accept the

Throughout Baldwin’s essay, he encourages changes in education for blacks, but he does so using ethos and pathos. For example, he starts off by notifying teachers that they will meet the most determined resistance from society, as he has in his writings. This shows his credibility by informing the teachers that they do not struggle alone in this issue. The use of ethos leads him to the use of pathos by providing an example of an African American child growing up, drawing conclusions about the world, but not having an explanation for it. This really makes the audience contemplate about their childhoods.

Black Boy, an autobiography written by Richard Wright, shows the effects of an aspiring young boy. Education for kids like him in the early 1900s was uncommon, to get good grades and to continue school after fifth grade was almost unheard of.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will hurt forevermore. Words hold power, they are the key to success and the bomb to downfall. Throughout history, only the words of victors are remembered while the voices of the lost are forgotten throughout the ages. A simple piece of literature, such as the Diary of Anne Frank, can cause millions of people to see their world in a new light. From a young age, Richard Wright discovered the power behind the words he spoke and heard; the strength that bleeds through the inked characters of the forbidden books he read, and the influence that a book written ages ago had on his family and others. The author of the autobiography Black boy, Richard Wright, uses literary

From 1877 to 1954, African Americans in America did not have many opportunities in life due to laws set in place known as the Jim Crow laws (“Jim”). This caused them to live in fear and do whatever white people wanted them to do, to keep their lives out of harm’s way. Richard Wright, the narrator and author of the autobiographical novel Black Boy, is the opposite of those people. His story begins in the year 1912, where he is a young, innocent boy, knowing nothing about what is going on in the world around him. As he grows older, he begins noticing that people care about color, but he does not understand why. Later on in life, he has some run ins with people who want to take control of his life as well as the lives of other colored

Baldwin’s essay is effective to his readers because he uses his personal memories as example. One of the memories is when Baldwin explains how his father is never proud of his skin color, which explains how black people think of themselves. “With his blackness and beauty, and with the fact that he knew that he was black but did not know that he was beautiful” claimed Baldwin (85). Some black people don’t really like their skin color, because they believe blackness is ugly. Today, some black people bleach their skin especially black women. They bleach their skin just to let their skin white and it common in Africa. Therefore, what Baldwin is trying to pass out to his readers is the color black is beautiful. Baldwin father blackness have had so many

Chicago, home to Richard Wright in Black Boy, poses several challenges to Wright. Outlined in this autobiography, Wright discusses the struggles he overcame throughout his life to reach the success he sought after. Reminiscing on his younger days through the book, Wright writes about growing up through a tough childhood, eventually leading to how this influenced him as an adult. With the ambitions of reaching the North and becoming successful, Wright goes on a journey through life to accomplish these goals. Wright uses the rhetorical strategies of point of view and repetition to examine how these struggles influenced him.

This theme is carried through Black Boy by describing Wright’s challenges facing racial stereotypes. As an African American living in the South, he is stripped of his individuality and grouped together with others of his race as a violent, criminal, and inferior class of people. When Wright

He was made to deal with this horror in one of two ways, either to keep his head down and comply with the unfair treatment he received, or to fight back, and rebel against the society’s intentions for him. He accepted an array of abuse, ranging from humiliation to the threat of physical violence, and although it took its toll Wright kept quiet. However, in any area of his life where he could get away with it, Wright subverted the authoritative rule, with theft, disobedience, or the pursuit of forbidden education, in order to combat brutality he faced. Cleary, Black Boy tells us important lessons about the American past, in terms of racism, and how its remnants continue today. But, equally importantly, it helps understand the role an individual in society can play in bringing about change.

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.

In Richard Wright’s autobiography entitled “Black Boy,” Wright told the world about his life. I feel that Wright intended this book not to make readers feel sorry for how African Americans lived in the past, but to inform us of how life was during that period of time.

   In the early twentieth century black American writers started employing modernist ways of argumentation to come up with possible answers to the race question. Two of the most outstanding figures of them on both, the literary and the political level, were Richard Wright, the "most important voice in black American literature for the first half of the twentieth century" (Norton, 548) and his contemporary Ralph Ellison, "one of the most footnoted writers in American literary history" (Norton, 700). In this paper I want to compare Wright's autobiography "Black Boy" with Ellison's novel "Invisible Man" and, in doing so, assess the effectiveness of their conclusions.