The Struggle in Black Boy to Find a Figure of Manhood to Emulate

Adolescence can be the most crucial part of a person’s development. It is the time of transition into adulthood. The experiences gathered this time of a person’s life have lasting effects that linger long into adulthood. Proper guidance and support during this time is a person’s life is essential to ensuring that the person is able to become a successful adult in society. However, many African-American youth are lacking this type of support and guidance during this critical stage in life. Disproportionately some African American male adolescents aren’t provided proper mechanisms for their transition to manhood. Some sociologists believe that the lack of a rites of

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.

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 African Americans, the wide education gap between black and white, and the unequal job opportunity for African American.

Everybody, at one moment or another during their childhood, has wished to gain the responsibilities of an adult. However, most kids are held back by the childish part of themselves. They have to go through a coming of age cycle, that once completed, has matured them and made them evolve from their old-self. In Richard Wright’s autobiography Black Boy, we follow a young boy named Richard through his own journey to become a man, as we see him struggle and overcome obstacles. The author uses the motifs of hunger, discrimination, and religion to represent his quest and to emphasize on all the challenges life throws at him.

Wright in the black boy address the corruption of authority in American society. Wright talks about how his boss and the son had drove a black woman in their car. He talks about how white people looked and passed without expression. Also he talked about how a white police had watched them from the corner but made no move: “A white policeman watched from the corner, twirling his night stick, but he had made no move”(179). This shows how authorities in American society is bad. Later, Wright describes saying the woman came out crying, bleeding and holding her stomach: “Later the woman stumbled out, bleeding, crying, holding her stomach. her clothing torn”(179). After she reached outside the police arrested her: “ When she reached the sidewalk,

. In the book Black Boy, by Richard Wright, we explore many themes as we read coming of age story from the point of view of an African-American boy in the earlier 20th century. This is a time with a lot of oppression and lifestyles and practices that would seem strange to us today. Wright, however, is not the usual boy with a usual view of the world. Richard Wright uses his oppression to value himself; instead of taking the knowledge handed to him, he challenges ideas of race, justice, and religion and gains wisdom.

Richard Wright is a black American author and a man with a very unique story. In the self written memoir Black Boy, our protagonist and author Richard finds himself trapped in the South with a burning desire to become a writer, but is stuck working jobs that are unfulfilling and with a family that is abusive toward him and his idea of freedom. He realizes he must move North to achieve his dream of being a writer, but that goal proves itself to be quite difficult with all the factors that are holding him back. I would recommend this novel highly to any one of my peers. When considering the book, one must remember that Wright was the same age as a highschooler while facing these hardships.

In the past, Richard faced a lot of discrimination and shared his story to the world. Richard Wright was born after the Civil War, but before the Civil Rights Movement. The topics he put in the book “Black Boy” were of the Jim Crow lifestyle, the racism, and the discrimination that happened to him. If he were writing an autobiography today in 2016, about a black boy growing up in the United States, I think he would write about the different living environments between blacks and whites, how blacks are treated unfairly in society, and how racial profiling affected the police force.

Black Boy by Richard Wright was written in the Modernism period of literature. It explores the issues of society in America and the race issues of the time. An author’s writing is greatly influenced by the life experiences they obtain. The issues of race played a key role in Richard Wright’s works. Many Modernist Authors are self-reflexive, and concerned with their own nature as

     Black Boy challenges our stereotypical thinking of the South and the North. In the South, Wright shows how ignorance and racial discrimination lead to prejudice and self-hatred. Wright shows how Communists dominate intellectual communion and social contacts in the North. At the end of Black Boy, Wright has a clear awareness that all the places where he experienced has threatened to diminish his spirit. Wright’s Black Boy sends a message of optimism about the possibility of the black Southerners achieving a fulfilling sense of identity in America.

Within Richard Wright’s novel, Black Boy, Wright depicts his rough, cold progression of life as a young black boy trying to find a greater purpose and meaning for his life as well as for blacks as a whole. His hunger for equality and purpose is prevalent throughout the novel, and Wright’s purpose in its presence is to prove to his audience the truth of the black way of life. He realizes that his audience lives in stark contrast to his life, with their suburban culture, and uses it to tailor his novel to better communicate his story of black reality. Within Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Wright effectively understands the homogenous, sheltered background of his audience, and utilizes it to further demonstrate to his audience his true experience as a “black boy,” and the true experience of black America, to hopefully unite the races at last.

Richard Wright 's autobiography Black Boy is a book that narrates Wright’s life growing up as an African-American in the woods of Mississippi during Jim Crow laws. Many African Americans were Wright were from faced financial struggles. These tough living circumstances greatly affected his youth. Black Boy examines the tough times Wrights and his family faced. Wrights tough youth seemed to have a huge affect on Wrights life. It is story of one boy’s determination to get out of his living circumstances. Despite the poverty, his family and he face. Black Boy is primarily a story about a life-long struggle between racism and poverty. Wrights also was always in search for acceptance, love, and an understanding of the world around him. Wrights best attribute may have been his knowledge along with his imagination. The setting that this novel takes place was a very important influence in the style in which Wright wrote Black Boy. The setting is primarily in Jackson, Mississippi. However, in Wrights later years he bounces around from Arkansas, Memphis, Tennessee, and Chicago. Jim Crow laws and poverty defined the south during this time and Wright was right in the middle of both of these things. Many minor characters in Black Boy do not seem to have much of an impact on Wright at first glance. However, after analyzing these characters I found that Wright learned a lot from

I must say that writing this paper was an eye-opening experience for me, as it brought me closer to my interviewees—a high school friend of mine, Obinna Akpa and my father Sampson Chukwuzubelu Madu. I was given the opportunity to ask questions on topics that one would not normally ask. These questions touched on Black male masculinities and comparisons were made in order to differentiate how both characters operated through Black manhood. To begin, I will provide a background of both interviewees.

His family’s confidence never dwindled; time after time, they joined a crusade to save Richard’s soul. Tensions began to increase when Aunt Addie enrolled Richard in the religious school where she taught. Labeled as a black sheep, Richard continued to defy the iron fist of his family. The conflict between Aunt Addie and Richard exploded when he was accused of eating walnuts in class. Richard knew the boy in front of him was guilty, but he abided by the “street code” and said nothing. Despite Richard’s denial, Aunt Addie did not conduct an investigation and immediately beat Richard in front of the class. After submitting to his aunt, he finally confessed the guilty suspect. Rather than to commend Richard for the truth, Aunt Addie attempted to beat him again after school. However, brandishing a knife, Richard defended himself. He had stood up for his dignity and pride, something that was worth more to him than anything.

The main objective of this study is to study the Richard Wright’s autobiography Black Boy (1945), on alienation, identity, suppression, oppression and exploitation, insecurity, the major predicaments of blacks in the matrix of inter and intra continental and racial setup. The title Black Boy introduces this negation-turned affirmation by flipping the common degrading “boy” reference to black men into a reclaiming of his own identity and narrative.