51842401 Analytical Essay Between The World And Me

English 212

Dr. Thompson

January 3, 2015

In Richard Wrights “Between the World and Me” the use of extraordinary practicality is utilized to create images to travel through the events of the poem with great awareness. This poem voices of a black man who discovers a crime scene as a late eyewitness then learns of the social injustice, and man’s cruelty to man that took place. He trips upon the scene in the woods and shifts from the disconnected observer to vicarious suffering, and in the end deals with the loss of innocence and ironic enlightenment brought to him by discovering the gruesome crime scene. Three literary elements to carry the tone of anger throughout the poem are personification, vivid imagery, and symbolism.
Wright uses embodiment to give the poem life and give the speaker in the story the ability to amplify his emotions of surprise, anger, and fear. In the beginning of the poem the speaker describes the scene as “guarded by scaly oaks and elms” as to say that nature guarded and preserved the scene. The speaker gives the woods life and creates an eerie feeling by saying the woods “guarded” the scene. Then he moves towards a discovery of white “slumbering” bones giving them human abilities of sleeping, which symbolize the eternal sleep of death. He uses this description early in the poem to say that someone has died here; this was their final place on this earth. Then as the speaker moves on in his story and horrifically shifts from the observer to the victim he portrays the dramatic changes in his surroundings “the ground gripped my feet; ... the sun died in the sky; a night wind muttered in the grass; … the darkness screamed with thirsty voices; and the witnesses rose and lived.” The speaker tells of his terror during his change using personification to give human properties to the woods as the ground immobilizes him, the light turns to darkness, the silence turns into chaotic screams, and the speaker relives the night of the crime. The author’s use of intense imagery creates the images in the poem giving the reader a clear view of the frightening events and awareness of what is being described by the speaker. He illustrates with contempt the scene of a marry crowd in the darkness “the gin-flask passed from mouth to mouth; cigars… glowed, the whore smeared the lipstick red upon her lips.” In this stanza the speaker is criticizing the crowd for celebrating and laughing as he is in panic not knowing what they will do to him next. He tells of his intense panic and dread as he learns of the plans the merciless beings have for him “a thousand faces swirled around me, clamoring that my life be burned”. With this line the reader can vividly see the mob surround the victim and taught and torture him before they carry out their plan. He describes the intense agony and pain inflicted upon his body by the brutal drunken pack “… my skin clung to the bubbling hot tar, falling from me in limp patches” as he is tarred and tortured. This powerful line is so intense that the reader can imagine the pain on their own skin becoming vicarious victims as well as the speaker in the poem.
Richard Wright uses symbolism intensely in this poem to help transmit the feelings of anger and indignation to the reader. His anger is intense when he writes of the discovery of the crime scene “a sapling pointing a blunt finger accusingly at the sky” as to accuse God for allowing this travesty to happen. He uses this line as if he were to the heavens “How could you let this happen to me?” Then when he writes of the scene of the mercilessly burning victim he writes of great irony when the speakers says, “Then my blood was cooled mercifully, cooled by a baptism of gasoline.” The victims’ skin is cooled by a baptism of gasoline which is not meant to cool his body at all. Baptism symbolically means rebirth, depicting the victims’ renaissance to the reality and knowledge gained of the hate crimes happening at this time frame in history. At the end of the poem the speaker says “Now I am dry bones and my face a stony skull staring in yellow surprise at the sun…” symbolizing the ironic enlightenment that comes at the end of this merciless killing. There is a shift from innocence to knowledge in this line; the victim learns that social injustice and man’s inhumanity to man imposed on him is real.
Wright transfers the theme of loss of innocence and enlightenment in this poem vividly as the speaker discovers a scene of a brutal murder of a black man and learns of the wickedness of man. Through the skill of implementing literary elements such as personification, vivid imagery, and symbolism Richard Wright achieves to tell a story of great evil moving the reader to share his feelings of repugnance.