Theme Of Racism In Richard Wright's Black Boy

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.

“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.

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.

In his autobiographical work, Black Boy, Richard Wright wrote about his battles with hunger, abuse, and racism in the south during the early 1900's. Wright was a gifted author with a passion for writing that refused to be squelched, even when he was a young boy. To convey his attitude toward the importance of language as a key to identity and social acceptance, Wright used rhetorical techniques such as rhetorical appeals and diction.

Richard Wright uses language in his novel, Black Boy, as a source to convey his opinions and ideas. His novel both challenges and defends the claim that language can represent a person and become a peephole into their life and surroundings. Richard Wright uses several rhetorical techniques to convey his own ideas about the uses of language.

Growing up in Mississippi in 1908, a southern state with extreme discrimination and segregation, Richard Wright went through many tough times living there as a young, black man. He was constantly insulted, looked down upon, beaten, and was threaten many times simply due to the color of his skin. However, through the darkest days of his life, he read books and obtained knowledge on the controversial topics of racism. As he grew older, he was determined to become a writer no matter what people say. He wrote his own autobiography, Black Boy, to express his life struggles and hopefully influence the minds of his readers, who went through extreme discrimination, to speak up for themselves. Even though that racism was harsh and intense in the mid 1900s, through the Civil Rights movements, racism was softened and many barriers, that prevented blacks from doing what they wanted have been removed. If Wright was to write a book in 2018, he would write about the violence of police brutality, black’s unemployment rate, and the first black president that marked a huge victory against racism.

Richard Wright’s autobiographical novel, Black Boy, illustrates his character development. He encounters a lot of hardships which he eventually grows from. Throughout the course of the story, Richard develops from an oblivious young boy to a responsible young adult.

Richard is an unpredictable and inconsistent character. He is apprehensive yet secure, adamant yet sympathetic, extremely intelligent yet absolutely humble. ‘Black Boy’ examines the life of Richard Wright starting from his abusive childhood and leading up to his oppressive adult life. Richard’s character was sculpted by multiple events during his lifetime. Some of these events affected him positively while others just made his life more difficult. Richard’s greatest trait would be his intelligence. It started out as a mere interest for books when Ella read him his first book and then it turned into something more. Furthermore, Richard’s mother teaches him how to be aggressive and stand up for himself. Even though it helps it also causes lots of violent confrontations on his behalf. After his mother’s paralysis, Richard’s life takes a turn for the worst as he starts lying and stealing in order to make enough money to go to the North. After moving to Chicago and facing some rough patches, Richards seems to have found himself after he joins the John Reed's Club and the Communist Party. When things turn sour with the party Richard gains the characteristic he was lacking in order to be successful-- courage. Richard Wright is a contradictory character with no consistent characteristic besides his belief in his own self worth and capability, and his love for

In the novel “Black Boy” by Richard Wright, is the time period of the Jim Crow Law. This time period is when the whites ruled over any other race. Richard didn’t really understand how everything worked at the time. He had to learn the rough way how blacks had to behave when the whites were around.

Richard Wright born in 1908 in Mississippi impoverished by his grandmother insisting he only reads the Bible. He became well known for an excerpt from his autobiography Black Boy entitled Fighting Words. In fighting Wright describes the moment he became interested in the use of descriptive words. He begins with his trip to the bank where he stumbled upon a magazine with a editorial piece describing H.L. Mencken as a fool. Immediately Wright knew that Mencken had to be advocating about the thing going on in the south. That is the only way he would be receiving this kind of attention. This intrigued Wright, he had to have Mencken book. But how blacks were not allowed to check out book from the library. Wright had gone

Have you ever wanted to achieve something? If so, Richard Wright in “Black Boy” feels the same way too. “Black Boy” is about an 8th grader named Richard Wright who writes a story in his free time because he was bored. After he writes the story , he brings it to the newspaper so they can print it. Next he receives a bunch of criticism from friends and family after the story is published. The main character is Richard Wright. Three characteristics of Richard are he is tough, determined, and a dreamer.

In the excerpt from "Black Boy", Wright utilizes dialogue in order to establish Wright's first full recognition of his identity as a “colored boy.” While Richard and his family are traveling via train to Arkansas, he begins to notice the separation of blacks and whites. This acknowledgement sparks questions about his grandmother, who is a white woman. Richard is faced with the conflict “Man vs. Society.” He is struggling to understand the separation among blacks and whites because his grandmother has lived in the same home with them.

Loneliness, in small amounts, can be beneficial, but an abundance can often leave a person broken. In Richard Wright’s autobiography, Black Boy, we are shown a dreadful time in the South where oppression and racism is all too present. The autobiography highlights the struggles and hardships Richard and his family faced growing up in the South. Isolation corrodes Richard’s spirit, ultimately leaving him a cynical man.

     Richard Wright's novel Black Boy is not only a story about one man's struggle to find freedom and intellectual happiness, it is a story about his discovery of language's inherent strengths and weaknesses. And the ways in which its power can separate one soul from another and one class from another. Throughout the novel, he moves from fear to respect, to abuse, to fear of language in a cycle of education which might be likened to a tumultuous love affair.

Black Boy is a denunciation of racism and his conservative, austere family. As a child growing up in the South, Richard Wright faced constant pressure to submit to white authority, as well as to his family’s violence. However, even from an early age, Richard had a spirit of rebellion. His refusal of punishments earned him harder beatings. Had he been weaker amidst the racist South, he would not have succeeded as a writer.