Preview

Growing Up In Richard Wright's Black Boy

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
575 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Growing Up In Richard Wright's Black Boy
Black Boy by Richard Wright is a novel and autobiography all in one. Black boy takes us thought the young life of Richard Wright, who is both the author and the main character. Richard goes though many hardships growing up. The book is set in the early 1900's in the American south. Richards mother raises Richard in the harsh environment after Richard's father abandons them. Richards's main goal is to make it to the north.
In the book we relive different experiences in Richards' life. When Richard was just a small boy he was extremely curious and lit the white fluffy curtains on fire. This foreshadows how Richards's life is going to turn out. Growing up Richard had it tough during his early life. His father left him at a very early age, this left Richard and his mother to fend for themselves.
…show more content…
Once when his mom sent him to the store to buy food, Richard was jumped and robbed. He came home telling his mom what happened, why he has no food or money. Richards mom was nor sympathetic or angry. She simply sent Richard back multiple times, trying to teach him a lesson. He finally fought off the boys and brought back food. Fighting was a key part of Richards schooling. He was extremely nervous in large groups of people and often fought them off. Another way Richard coped with schooling was by creating a gang. This made Richard feel as if he was appreciated and welcomed.
Richard mother became extremely sick and had to be taken to Richard's grandmothers house in Jackson for care. During the stay at Grannies house, Richard grew to hate Granny. She would constantly force religion onto him, telling him that he was worthless if he was no Christian and that he would be going to hell. Another thing Granny did not approve of was Richard getting a job; she said that it was un-Christian. Richard convinced her

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    As a kid, Richard was always regarded as a failure. He was a scrawny, kid, always cut from the basketball team, bullied, and rarely got any…

    • 265 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Richard becomes friends with other black boys with his neighbors in Arkansas. Finding that they share the same hostility and the same pride they would gather round and talk about the white culture and why they behave or act that way. Wright remarks that Richard and the other boys did not fully understand what the motivations of the white people are. One day Richard got into a fight and a broken bottle gave him a deep wound behind the ear and would require stitches. “Once, in a battle with a gang of white boys, I was struck behind the ear with a piece of broken bottle; the cut was deep and bled profusely. I tried to stem the flow of blood by dabbing at the cut with a rag and when my mother came from work I was forced to tell her that I was…

    • 220 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    He says, “I wanted to tell him that I was going north precisely to change, but I did not. ‘I’ll be the same,’ I said, trying to indicate that I had no imagination whatever.” (256). He does not say his thoughts, but rather tells the exact opposite of what he is planning to do. He shows that he is a Maverick and uses words to his advantage. Richard also constantly puts “sir” at the end of each statement he makes. He states, “No, sir. I don’t… Well, sir. I don’t know…” This gives a sarcastic and mocking tone from Richard. Clearly, Richard is “attacking” the men very subtly with his words of “sir” because he views the people in the North with disdain. Richard despised the North and before he left for Chicago, he mocked the white men with words like “sir” as weapons to express his hatred and disgust of the North.…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    mother tried to convince to change, he insists on pursuing learning. She asks Richard what he…

    • 1438 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Black Boy is an autobiography of Richard Wright who grew up in the backwoods of Mississippi. He lived in poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and had rage towards those around him; at six he was a "drunkard," hanging about in taverns. He was surrounded on one side by whites who were either indifferent to him, pitying, or cruel, and on the other by blacks who resented anyone trying to rise above the common people who were slaves or struggling.…

    • 1806 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the autobiography Black Boy by Richard Wright, Richard discusses his challenges throughout childhood. He faced a massive deal of racism and pure ignorance. Richard finds his salvation in reading, writing, and thinking. He…

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    He wasn't allowed to do or listen to anything that his mom thought was “Ghetto”, and was supposed to be on his best behavior, .Anthony Jones is a 14 year old boy from East Cleveland, Ohio where he lives in a house with his brothers and a mother that works almost 18 hours a day.…

    • 219 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rather than stepping up to do the right thing, she keeps to herself, making it seem like she is as guilty as Matt. Both Matt and Ruth’s characterization together plays a vital role in the story. Even if they are made out to be distant, Matt and Ruth both have the same mindset about Richard’s unfortunate fate. Richard deserves being punished for his crime to the Fowler household; however, his death is not justified. Richard acted out of rage and love, but he did not deserve to die as he wanted to live a normal life after bail. Some may counter that Richard deserves to die under certain circumstances such as cold murder; however, Matt’s premeditated manner of killing Richard as an act of vengeance is never right. It makes it even worse as the story unfolds, revealing that Richard has indeed begin moving on starting a new life. Richard acted out of rage, and Matt acted out of passion, which made things worse as Matt realized his actions brought back memories of Frank’s death. The them of the story is revealed that revenge can many times act as a vicious cycle, and the only way to break it is to forgive and let…

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout life there will be hard times to test man. Sometimes man goes through troubles that will test them. In Black Boy, Richard Wright suggests that in one’s life there will be struggles that need to be dealt with to achieve their dreams.…

    • 222 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The character that will be discussed in this essay is Toby. Toby had a very traumatic childhood, with both of her parents dying when she was still young. Her mother became very ill, and the family was not able to afford the medication anymore, causing her mother to eventually die. Not long after her mothers death, her father became depressed and full of shame over his inability to pay for his wife’s bills. This eventually culminated into her father killing himself with a rifle while Toby was home; Toby then had to not only bury her own father in the backyard but also hide the rifle to avoid getting in trouble with the CorpSeCorps. She fled her former life, quitting college and disappearing from her old identity altogether; the lack of identification however made it hard for her…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A few months later they have to move again because the whites murdered aunt Maggie’s husband Mr. Hoskins. They have to escape from Elaine before white people can get them. Mr. Hoskins sent the warning message to his family before he died, as he believed the whites would definitely kill all of his family members. Their next destination is West Helena, Arkansas. A few months Ella suffers with paralyzing strokes, she become ill and unable to work anymore. Richard’s grandmother takes them back to Jackson, Mississippi. His grandmother could not take care all of them, due to economic factor. So she decided that Richard should stay with uncle Clarks who lives in greenwood. While Ella is fighting against her disease, Richard and his brother should stay with their uncle and aunt for a while until his mother is recovered from the disease. This is time for moving again. After Richard graduates his ninth grade, he now turns into an adult. As he begins to work he starts to see his threatening environment. His identity towards white people is gradually shaped, he has to learn and adapt himself to this new world where humanism is taken away from him. As despair grows Richard hopes to leave for north as soon as possible, he hopes that in North he could live independently apart from whites…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    His life was no fairy tale, for it had sadness, bitterness, anger, and most of all, hunger. Richard Wright was taught many things through his life. First, he was taught to fight for himself. Second, he learned to deal with his anger towards his father and his fear towards the grueling gangs. Lastly, he was taught by his mother, in a very little time, to grow up. Richard Wright had come face to face with many feelings, but no matter how hard he tried, he could never escape the beast that never went away,…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    2 years later followed by his second fictional piece, The Man Who Was Almost a Man, which was followed a year later by Native Son. Richard Wright also published works of nonfiction, which include 12 Million Black Voices, printed in 1941 by New York: Viking, as well as essays and poetry. Blackboy was “designed to illuminate how obscene was [the] denial of access to full participation in the democratic process by law, custom, and the practice of race”. It was a way for Americans, and for the readers, to see Richard’s response “to the call of the most sacred American principles regarding human rights” (XV). His autobiography stirred success that followed Uncle Tom’s Children and the financial stability from Native Son. The purpose was to inform his readers of his life as a child and how it felt like to be a black male in “an oppressive society” (XV) and it’s consistency remains the same throughout the…

    • 1794 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Richard Wright's early life is made through sheer struggle and how he achieved and conquered those struggles to make something of himself. Richard Wright was born on September 4th, 1908, in Roxie, Mississippi. He was the grandson of slaves and son of a sharecropper. “Richard Wright” Wright’s father left him and his mother when he was five. It became much more difficult for his mother to take care of Wright alone and therefore began his struggle with his life. Wright was schooled in Jackson, Mississippi where Wright was only able to acquire a ninth grade level education,…

    • 1038 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Black Boy

    • 684 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Throughout Wright’s novel, many different forms of racism impacted his independence. In fact, Richards awakening to racial justice occurred when he was unknowingly selling discrimination newspapers for the Ku Klux Klan. “… I turned the pages and read articles so brutally anti-negro…” (Wright 132). Ashamed and dismayed, Richard immediately threw out the newspapers and never spoke about the incident again. Another example where he was undervalued and belittled occurs when his employer questions his intellect and ability for self-expression. “You’ll never be a writer, she said, who on earth ever put such ideas in your… head?” (Wright 147). Ironically this racial hatred, in turn…

    • 684 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays