Richard Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground

In The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright, strong descriptive language was used to help the audience clearly envision the true treachery of the main characters situation. The imagery was also used to help set the dark tone of this story as everything that can go wrong does, and presents the world as having a never ending cycle of injustice. The singing from the church is first seen as a positive from the man, which also depicts God and the church as a type of savior to the man. He is “excited” and seemingly rejoices when he discovers the noises he heard were voices singing in a church. Until he realizes the black people are asking for forgiveness which he deems as pointless. Then all emotion he once had for the church drifts away and is replaced with emptiness. After his run in with the unforgiving and brutal police he sees everything as a joke. Which could be the doing of
Even though he starts as innocent his descent into the sewer reveals his thievery and murderous tendencies. Similar to the Invisible Man, this man is invisible. He spy's on people and sneaks into several places all without being seen, except when he is in Nick’s store and helps a woman purchase grapes. Even though she clearly sees him in order to purchase the grapes she does not really see him as he is wet and covered in sewage. So this man is invisible even when he is seen. His visibility is not only nonexistent to others but to himself as well. When he attempts to type his name with the typewriter, he cannot as he does not remember his own name. This can also show how he is reverting into the person others see him as. Not as a person, but as a no name low life with nothing but bad intentions as he steals and hides away in the sewage. An unfair system pushed him Underground where he became the evil man society depicts him to