Richard Wright Introduction Of Author example essay topic

TITLE: Black Boy AUTHOR: Richard Wright INTRODUCTION OF AUTHOR: Richard Wright was born in Natchez, Mississippi. When he was six years old, his father, Nathan Wright deserted the family for whatever reason. His mother, Ella, became the breadwinner of the family. Abandoned by her husband and unable to establish economic independence from her strict mother, Ella suffered greatly. A strong woman who faces terrible adversity, she trained Richard to be strong and to take care of himself. Later, the feisty, independent spirit Richard developed at home leaded him to refuse to accept the codes of behavior the white world has set for Southern blacks.

When Richard finally decided to become writer, that career represented a declaration of independence from those in the black community. PLOT SUMMARY: The opening chapter recounts Wright's early childhood in Natchez, Mississippi, and his family's move to Memphis. It describes his early rebellion against parental authority, his poverty and hunger, and his unsupervised life on the streets while his mother is at work. Then the Wrights move to the home of Richard's Aunt Maggie.

But their pleasant life there ends when whites kill Maggie's husband. Later the threat of violence by whites forces Maggie to flee again. Richard's mother has a stroke. Richard is sent to his Uncle Clark's, but he is unhappy there and insists on returning to his mother's. Richard confronts his Aunt Addie, who teaches at the Seventh-Day Adventist church school.

He also resists his grandmother's attempts to convert him to religious faith. And he writes his first story. Richard gets a job selling newspapers but quits when he finds that the newspapers espouse racist views. Later, his grandfather dies.

Richard gets a job working for white people. Then he is baptized in his mother's church. Finally, he has another near-violent confrontation with a relative. Richard publishes his first story.

The reaction from his family is overwhelmingly negative. Richard becomes class valedictorian. But he refuses to give the speech written for him by the principal. Richard has several terrifying confrontations with whites.

In the most important of these confrontations, he is forced out of a job because he dares to ask to learn the skills of the trade. Richard learns to steal. By stealing he acquires enough money to leave the Deep South. Richard finds a place to stay in Memphis. The owner of his rooming house encourages him to marry her daughter. Richard takes another job with an optical company.

The foreman tries to provoke a fight between him and a black employee of another company. Richard borrows a library card and discovers the hard-hitting style of columnist H.L. Mencken. He begins to read voraciously. Richard leaves for Chicago at the end of the novel.

Wright creates an image of himself as a boy who is sensitive to the external world and to his own inner reality. He wants to bring to the white American audience what it means to be black in the white world. It discusses the main theme which have in many slave narratives: isolation from the mainstream society, the family's struggle to remain united, dreams and longing for a better future, violence both against and by blacks, the quest for literacy and freedom. Black Boy portrays the deprivation Wright faces growing up. It shows poverty, hunger, lack of emotional support, miserable living conditions, and Richard's response to these difficulties. The book also considers family life.

For Richard, home is a place of intense emotional conflict, and his family forces him to fight back constantly in order to be able to pursue his own path. But the family also offers support in times of crisis, for example, when his mother has a stroke. Many readers think the central focus of Wright's story is on his development into an artist and intellectual. From this perspective, the book is about the influences that shape Wright's desire to be a writer, the experiences that mold his creative outlook, and the obstacles he must overcome to escape the limited environment in which he is growing up. These readers feel that many of Wright's hardships are those of any sensitive and rebellious individual in a world that doesn't respect those qualities. They see the novel's conclusion less as a flight from racism and more as a move toward a new career and identity as a writer.

Which of these two major themes do you think is more central? Or are they given equal weight? Richard Wright was the grandson of slaves. His early life, and lives of his parents and liberated grandparents, were devas ted by the consequences of this terrible inheritance.

Black Boy was influence ed by these historical perspectives. Black slaves, brought in chains from Africa, played a major role in laying the economic foundations of the United States. These enslaved people were not permitted to establish bonds in the strange new land with people they knew, but were sold and disbanded. In the early 1900's, anti black violence increased. Between 1910 and 1920, Southern agriculture was gripped by a severe economic depression due to crop damage caused by flooding and the boll weevil. In those years, about 500000 blacks moved to the North, at tracked by new industrial jobs.

In the North, blacks continued to face discrimination in hiring practices and segregation in housing. CONCLUSION: By reading Wright's record of childhood and youth, my understandings about the blacks' lives increased. It provided a voice for many people who endured lives of wretched fear and poverty in United States. Black Boy catch ed my interests as I read through it. Wrights creates an image of himself as a boy who is sensitive at o the external world and to his own inner reality. He wants to bring to the white American audience what it means to be black in a white world.

And he succeeds brilliantly.