Essay on Richard Wright's The Man Who Was Almost a Man

“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 Richard Wright’s “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” Dave finds himself throughout the course of the story. Throughout the story, Dave is constantly seeking the pleasure of obtaining and then eventually shooting a gun in order to be a man and find himself. However, Dave does not expect the consequences that are to follow the pursuit of pleasure. The moral of the story pertains to the role pleasure and its consequences have in development and finding oneself. The story narrates a common, but little talked about problem, that runs rampant in today’s society. In the story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” Richard Wright illustrates Dave’s development, or lack thereof, through the symbols of the gun, the train, and the mule.

     With Dave feeling as if he is no longer a boy, he felt he deserved respect. Dave wanted the entire town to respect him but really yearned for it mostly from his parents. He worked hard in the fields and the money that he earned went to his mother. ?Ol? man Hawkins give yuh mah money yit?,? Dave said to his mother. He felt that since he did the work, then he should get the money, or at least some of it. After killing the mule in an accident, Dave also wanted to regain the respect of his boss and the other townspeople. They tormented him for his immaturity and he wanted badly to change his perception and earn his respect back. ? All the crowd was laughing now.? The townspeople were laughing at ?Dave right after he accidentally shot the mule. ?Dave really wanted to be treated like a man but it seemed as if it would never happen. ?Damn em all Nobody ever gave him anything. All he did was work. They treat me like a mule, n then they beat me.?

The movie surveyed a wide array of the troubles faced by boys and men as they try to navigate the realm of masculinity. A common theme was the command “be a man” and the cultural baggage that comes with living up to that ideal. To “be a man” means to not cry, to not be sensitive, to not let people mess with you, to respond with violence, to be angry, to drink, to womanize.

Philip Auger mentions that a common theme throughout the book is about finding ‘manhood’ and dignity. He uses the example of when Grant has to convince Jefferson that he is a man and not hog or animal as some white people said he was. Trying to find manhood and dignity is also a common theme that shows up in John Okada’s No-No Boy. In this story the main character, Ichiro, has a hard time trying to find his “manhood” as he deals with people shaming him for going to jail instead of joining the war to fight for the United States and against Japan where his family is

After a hard day at work, seventeen year old Dave heads across the fields for home, still thinking about some of the problems he had been facing with some other field help that day. He wants to prove to the others that he is not a child, anymore. “Mebbe Ma will lemme buy one when she gits mah pay from ol man Hawkins. Ahma beg her t gimme some money. Ahm ol ernough to hava gun. Ahm seventeen. Almost a man” (par. 1). Dave heads to the store to shop for a gun. He manages to talk Joe (storekeeper) to let him borrow the catalog for the night. Joe is surprised that

"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

What does it mean to be a man? Does it mean being tough, or does it mean standing up for the little guy. Bobby protagonist in the the book The First Part Last by Angela Johnson is faced with answering this question when he has to raise his newborn baby Feather all on his own. Bobby becomes a man in this story because he learns, grows, and matures through the novella. Throughout the book Johnson uses symbolism to suggest how the hardships in life can shape you as much if not more then the good parts.

What does it take in order to be a man? In the selection "The First Part Last" the author introduces a man who goes by "Just Frank" who confronts Bobby about being a man, when he doesn't look like much of a man himself. Bobby is one of the main characters of this book and has lot of encounters that can either make him look or not look like a man. He has a very eventful life, at such a young age, of which is basically sprung upon him within about nine months. He is faced with a teen pregnancy while he is still a child himself, and once it is time to bring his daughter into the world he loses the next most important person who portraits to his life and/or situation, his girlfriend and bestfriend, Nia. Throughout the book, Bobby shows many examples on how he has to be a man,

African American were enslaved by whites on the Southern plantation for several centuries until President lincoln won the Civil War and abolished slavery. However, the blacks did not obtain the freedom and civil rights that they have longed for after the Civil War. Instead, they were oppressed by the Jim Crow laws and lived a segregated life. Not until the Civil Right Movement in the 1960s that the blacks finally obtain some of the basic civil rights. Today, despite the fact that America has an African American president and many renowned black celebrities in the sport and the music industry, blacks still face racial prejudice and discrimination in everyday life. 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.

The Man Who Was Almost a Man, tells the story of a young seventeen year old teenager, named Dave Saunders, who finds himself struggling with the need to be taken seriously as an adult, while still being seen by his community, as merely a boy. Published in 1961 and written by Richard Wright, this short story focuses on the common struggle of young African American men in the South trying to find their identity outside of the box that the United States society put them in at the time. Dave felt that in order to prove that he was a man; in order to receive the respect he thought he deserved from Black and White Americans alike, he needed to purchase a gun. This, of course, proved to be of more harm than good, as Dave found himself incapable of using the gun correctly, and what resulted was the death of his employer’s mule. Dave then, after creating a nonsensical lie that does not convince anyone, decides to skip town in order to avoid the responsibility of taking up for his actions. When taking into consideration the story line and its relativity to the South during the 1920s, when the story is set, it’s clear to see that Dave Saunders’ story is more than what it seems to be on the surface. Dave Saunders’ story is a reflection of common coming-of-age struggles, and even more than that, the common African American struggle of trying to find power when everything surrounding you, and society as a whole, is telling you that you’re powerless; a struggle that is still very

What does it mean to be a man? How does one qualify for the title? Is the term "man" simply referring to male human beings, or does it hold a greater measure of meaning in society. In order to get more insight into this subject matter, I consulted, " The Tormont Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary". As I anticipated, the first definition for man stated as following: "An adult human being as distinguished from a female". This definition, did not surprise me, but what did ,was what followed it , it stated: A male human being endowed with such qualities as courage, strength, and fortitude, considered characteristic of manhood". To be a man in our society one must posses such qualities, along with honor, reliability and endurance. This

In the story “ The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by Richard Wright, besides the fact that Dave is a consistent character, Dave’s actions and words are sprung from motivation. Dave decides to buy a gun because he wants to be treated as a man, not as a little kid. Everyone around him is a man who possesses some kind of power and he wants that. Dave wants to have the power that he sees other men have so that people don’t make fun of him anymore but instead take him seriously. When Dave finally gets his hands on the gun he wanted, he finally feels like a man. He thinks that now that he has the gun no one will be able to laugh at him because by having the gun he thinks he has some type of power. “He held it loosely, feeling a sense of power” ( Wright 183). The day after having bought the gun Dave goes to work and goes far from where he could be heard and decides

as a sign of strength, responsibility, and courage as well as the sarcastic results of achieving this hope. His further loss of self-importance and independence drove him to break from the setting that ridicules him to try to be more successful through gaining wisdom and independence.The story is well thought out Dave’s seek for a gun that he bought for only two dollars,

Racism is prevalent throughout history. There has always been one group of people who believed they were better than other groups. Racism for a long time seemed to be a taboo. The topic could not be discussed because if it was, it meant people were trying to rebel against the status quo. Protest literature emerged from the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920’s to 1930’s. Protest literature is used to address real socio-political issues and express objections against them. In his novel, The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison exposes the racism in society by focusing on the culture, in regards to the expected assimilation of African Americans and how the time period largely influenced the mistreatment of the African American population. He also uses symbols to show how African Americans were viewed in society.