Richard Wright 's Black Boy

Richard Wright and Malcolm X are two African Americans that struggled so much in the pursuit of knowledge in other to gain power and figure. Richard wright is from Natchez, Mississippi; he was in the south around the year 1925 and worked for the white men helping them get books from the library. During the process of obtaining books for the white men, he wants to read and know of the black history. Malcolm X is from Omaha, Nebraska, he was in prison for burglary, during his time in prison then came the passion for knowledge and he wants to build his vocabulary on how to speak, and write letters appropriately to Mr. Elijah Muhammad. Richard wright becomes motivated when he comes across an article that made mention of H. L. Mencken being a fool and wants to know the reason for such a saying, Richard wrights’ difficulties was how to get a library card without cut reading the novel of H. L. Mencken. Richard Wright becomes transformed greatly not only has his vocabulary improved but had known a great deal of black history. Malcolm X is motivated to read so he can write good letters to Mr. Elijah Muhammad. His difficulties was learning how to read, write and himself not having enough time to read because the lights had to go off and they were watched by a moving guard, he becomes transformed by studying the dictionary to improve his knowledge of vocabulary in reading, speaking and writing good letters to Mr. Elijah Muhammad.

Wright scrawls, “[y]et I still wondered how it was possible to know people sufficiently to write about them? Could I ever learn about life and people?”(Wright par 74). This quote shows Wright’s deeper understanding. Most likely, this occurs because Wright begins to read more. As with all readers, books increased Wright’s intelligence and opened his eyes to the world thereby removing him from a state of ignorance. Fully understanding his world, Wright’s questions cease to exist at the end of his piece. This indicates that Wright can now understand the world around him.

     It is at this time that Frederick Douglass learns one of the greatest freedoms of all. He is set free, in an educational sense. Douglass has been taught a few reading lessons form his mistress. Soon after his master discovers this, and commences the teaching at once. Soon thereafter, Frederick Douglass uses some smart tactics to resume his learning. He in a sense manipulates the children around him into teaching him how to read and write. This grand achievement taught Douglass something, as he says, “From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and

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.

2. The novel “Black Boy” by Richard Wright is structured into twenty chapters and two parts. Part one is about Richard Wright childhood and growing up in a difficult time where whites are cruel to all African Americans. Part two focuses more on Richard’s life as an adult and how he struggles to maintain a good job. The story starts from when he is a young child and to when he is an adult.

“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.

Douglass and Wright both experience similar reactions to their newly gained knowledge. After finding access to a library, Wright begins to read and learn more about different perspectives and the way others think. He eventually realizes, through his readings, that he is hurt by what he learns as is evident in quotation “But to feel that there were feelings denied me, that the very breath of life itself was beyond my reach, that more than anything hurt, wounded me,”

"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

In the passage “The Library Card,” Richard Wright describes how he started to read when he living in the South as an African American and how the books changed his attitude towards the racism. Occasionally, Wright interested in an article which was a furious denunciation of Mencken, and he wanted to know more about Mencken to figure out why the whites hated him. In order to read the book, Wright decided to borrow it from the library, but unfortunately, he did not have the library card due to the segregation. Afterwards, he borrowed the card from Mr. Falk, and got the books. Once he read the book, he was shocked by the writing style and became fascinated with it. The more he read, the more he knows about the world, and he realizes his life

In Richard Wright’s “Black Boy”, before completing a full year of schooling Richard admits that his knowledge of feeling far outweighs his knowledge of fact due to his early traumatic and negative experiences growing up. When Richard was young and moving to his mother’s sister house after their family didn’t have a place to stay at, he has an encounter with a reading called “Bluebeard and His Seven Wives” which when read to by Ella, a schoolteacher, his “interest was keenest” and he felt “lost to the world” but due to his granny’s strong religious beliefs it was considered “devil stuff” in her house (39). This demonstrates Richard’s attempt in learning and understanding more about a reading but due to his negative experience of him living in

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

keep your mouth shut or the white folks Ôll get you too." As a teenager Wright

The African-American literary period of Realism, Naturalism, and Modernism, also referred to as the Age of Wright, was when the writers and artist would expose the realities and identities of living in America and the harshness of society. This African-American literary period would begin around the time the Great Depression ends and would end the year in the death of Richard Wright, which was 1960. One of the most notable writers of this period was, of course, Richard Wright. By his way of thinking and the way he wrote literature, “Wright [had] effectively executed his own blueprint by rejecting what Locke termed the ‘decadent aestheticism’ of Harlem Renaissance writers and by drawing on the presumably more ‘nourishing’ elixir of Marxism and social protest” (Gates, 97). Richard Wright’s Blueprint for Negro Writing appeared in the journal New Challenge that he and other African-American writers had published in 1937. Although Richard Wright’s Blueprint for Negro Writing was written before 1940, this literature work makes an excellent representation of Urban Realism. This text represents this literary period because it tells about the reality, but also the promotion of success in African-American literature by criticizing black culture and nationalism in literary works.

Open your mind and learn! Frederick Douglass’ “Learning to Read” describes his struggle over being illiterate. As a slave of the time Douglass expresses the need to overcoming the ignorance of life. Douglass uses imagery, pathos, and personal experience or fortitude demonstrates the struggles of overcoming illiterate.

The Jim Crow Laws were a set of rules and regulations with the sole purpose to encourage racist and prejudicial ideals and further segregation, or as writer DuBois says, the “veil” which acts as a barrier based on skin color: whites vs blacks. Richard Wright’s memoir and autobiography Black Boy follows his coming of age story during the intense time period in the Jim Crow south where he struggles to make his own path for himself without becoming a subordinate to a white man, but still making a respectable career in the aspect of education. Throughout Richard Wright’s “Black Boy,” Richard continuously emulates obnoxious, stereotypically masculine and also timid characteristics which he does either unconsciously to blend with his environment, or deliberately to please other people and also to protect himself from the harsh racial climate that is overpowering at this time.