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Violence In Richard Wright's Black Boy

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Years after African Americans were stripped of their identities and sense of worth when they were brought here as slaves, the Jim Crow laws continued to curtail their rights and freedoms. Racism and violence were the tools permitting whites to produce a social order characterizing inequality. Richard Wright explores this within his memoir Black Boy, in the opening scene by depicting the events and aftermath of Richard setting his family home ablaze; Wright is able to set the stage for a tale of struggle with authority, fear, and perseverance as an African American growing up in the south at the height of the Jim Crow Laws. Wright prefaces the incident by depicting a small conflict between Richard and his family regarding him keeping quiet …show more content…

Wright helps the reader feel the severity of the problems he faces from inhaling the smoke and nearly dying through his effective use of personification and metaphors through a first-person view: “Smoke was choking me and the fire was licking at my face, making me gasp”(5). This is used to convey that his mistake is coming to get him in both a literal and figurative sense. Violence and fear are also prevalent, as seen within Wright’s description of his mother’s desperate calls for her son; “The distress I sensed in her voice was as sharp and painful as the lash of a whip on my flesh” (6). This use of language not only emphasizes on the emotion within the scene, but also distinctly foreshadows the violent punishment Richard faces following the incident; Wright’s utilization of diction as he repeats the use of variations of the word “beat” throughout the passage manages to further said foreshadowing. Richard’s emotions and view of his own family is prevalent as he resists the orders of his parents, “I hugged the edge of the brick chimney with all my strength” (6); Richard demonstrates his perseverance and determination for survival at just four years of age as he embraces a burning building rather than grasp his own father’s hand as the fear of fire was more bearable than the fear of a

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