Because Memphis is a larger, more cosmopolitan city than Jackson, there are slight differences in social behavior which Richard quickly recognizes. He works in an optical company with about twelve whites ranging from Ku Klux Klanners to several Jews and a Catholic and several blacks. The elevator operator, Shorty, a […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 12Summary and Analysis Chapter 11
Most autobiographical writing has two points of view: that of the writer as he was then and that of the writer as he exists in the present. Consequently many of the conclusions which Wright draws from his early behavior are seen only in retrospect; at the time about which he […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 11Summary and Analysis Chapter 10
Now that Richard is fully conscious of his limitations, he is just about ready to transform them into assets. If he can’t be one thing, he will be another. He is desperate to leave Jackson, to start the slow journey to the North. But he has to have money to […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 10Summary and Analysis Chapter 9
The world young Wright faces is, in many ways, similar to the one he has left behind. Home and school have prepared him, psychologically, for the shock of working with whites. He is a victim of their racist arrogance, just as he is also a victim of Granny’s and Aunt […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 9Summary and Analysis Chapter 8
Richard’s dreams and his stories are an escape for him when he is fourteen and fifteen, but only a temporary escape. His work, his home, and his acquaintances create a circle of insecurity and sorrow around him. He can’t escape them or their stories. He hears how blacks are killed […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 8Summary and Analysis Chapter 7
Aside from the book’s aesthetic and historical value, Black Boy gives important insights into the evolution of a writer. The shocks and blows he has received so far could have happened to any number of black children at that time in the South. Why, then, did Richard Wright’s character take […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 7Summary and Analysis Chapter 6
The ethics of living Jim Crow require that Richard be abject, obedient, and silent a slave in everything but name. Yet everything we know about his character has prepared us to expect rebellion. He might be shy and reserved, but he is nobody’s pawn. How he will, in fact, deal […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 6Summary and Analysis Chapter 5
The freedom that Richard has achieved by the age of twelve is unusual. It is a freedom of many facets. He no longer receives orders from Granny and Addie; they have given up on him. At the same time, this freedom from their criticism is also a freedom from their […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 5Summary and Analysis Chapter 4
The American artist has been called an Ishmael, doomed to wander on the outskirts of his society. Misunderstood or ignored by those with whom he longs to communicate, this Ishmael often ends up in exile from his people or in desolation among them. When young Richard Wright comes to view […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 4Summary and Analysis Chapter 3
The workings of a child’s mind are often confused in retrospect. The combination of his awakening senses, his parents’ authority, and the world of his contemporaries makes it nearly impossible to discover the individual in the child. Wright’s objective voice helps to clarify these confusing elements to himself and to […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 3