Black Boy (Masterplots II: Juvenile and Young Adult Biography Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Richard Wright
- First Published: 1945
- Time of Work: 1912–1927
- Setting: Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee
- Principal Characters: Richard Wright, Ella Wilson Wright, Nathaniel Wright, Alan Wright, Margaret Bolden Wilson, Richard Wilson, Maggie Wilson Hoskins, Addie Wilson, Tom Wilson
- Genres: Nonfiction, Autobiography
- Subjects: African Americans, Maturation or coming of age, Language or languages, Memory, South or Southerners, Authors or writers, Prejudices or antipathies, Manners or customs, Social life, 1910’s, 1920’s, 1930’s, American Dream, Chicago, Individuality
- Locales: Arkansas, Chicago, IL, Memphis, TN, Mississippi
Form and Content
Presented as a chronological narrative of fourteen chapters, Richard Wright’s autobiography, Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth, already contains in its opening chapter the major theme of his work as a whole: the trauma of alienation and the need for personal emancipation. As a four-year-old, Wright succeeded in setting fire to the white curtains in the house of his forbidding grandmother, who appeared to him to be white. Wright’s mischievous rebel child charts out his defiance of the order of silence and submission imposed on him by family...
[The entire page is 1691 words long]
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