Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth

by Richard Wright

Start Free Trial

Form and Content

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Richard Wright, a prominent black American writer, tells his story of growing up in the Jim Crow South during the early decades of the twentieth century. Written in the form of a novel, Black Boy describes the ordeal of being black in a world dominated by Southern whites; it also portrays the emotional turmoil of a child struggling for personal identity among domineering adults. Wright’s struggle to become a self-reliant individual and writer was a battle fought on two fronts: against the cultural barrenness of his own race, and against the tyranny of Southern whites.

Black Boy narrates the events of Richard Wright’s formative years chronologically. Beginning with his accidentally setting his house on fire at age four, this autobiography first tells how young Richard acquired an education from the streets, drinking at the age of six and fighting with others for autonomy. Expectations to conform, however, oppressed Richard throughout his life. Family members exacted slavish obedience to their arbitrary demands. The church attempted to coerce him into religious conviction. And whites, whenever he encountered them, demanded that he know, and keep, his “place.”

Richard first attempted to control his world by striking out against it, but fighting and confrontation proved to be ineffectual. “Because I had no power to make things happen outside of me in the objective world,” he noted, “I made things happen within.” Reading and writing began to evoke within him a deep emotional response, giving shape and meaning to an otherwise meaningless life.

Events described in Black Boy capture Richard’s early impression of life’s meaninglessness. The incomprehensibility of a distant war, the terrifying lynching of a friend, the exploitation of women, chain gangs, and the inexplicability of his mother’s suffering, all served to confirm his sense of living in an unpredictable world. By the age of twelve, he recalled, he had developed “a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering.”

Richard’s quest to discover how to “live in a world in which one’s mind and perceptions meant nothing and authority and tradition meant everything” uncovered no positive role models. Instead, he found himself surrounded by countless examples of how he should not live: an emotionally exploitative grandmother obsessed by her religion, a father who had abandoned his responsibility, uncles and aunts who beat him and behaved childishly, girls who made love indiscriminately, classmates who accepted abuse to get ahead, workers who stole without conscience, and white employers who preferred that he conform to their own demeaning stereotypes. The cumulative effect of such an environment filled Richard with despair and a keen awareness of his separateness. In turn, Richard was rejected by those people for his persistent individualism and determination to live with integrity.

From childhood (on the opening page he is commanded to “hush up”), Richard was surrounded by people who were determined to control him and to keep him quiet. Disciplined for an ignorant use of profanity, harassed by the school principal for wanting to give his own speech, and ridiculed for writing a story, Richard grew up silent and reserved, unable to act out the roles his society thought he should meekly play. He found himself forced from several jobs and eventually forced to steal. He witnessed constant oppression and lamented the apparent passivity of Southern blacks.

Richard at last found affirmation through his writing. Having completed his first story, he realized, “I had made something, no matter how bad it was; and it was mine.” Later he recalled that the only encouragement he ever received as a boy was from the editor who published that first story.

Richard came to a turning point with the recognition that he would never alter his relationship with his environment. Determined, then, to change his environment, he left his home, convinced that he was beginning to run toward, rather than away from, some goals. In 1925, at the age of seventeen, Richard moved to Memphis, destined eventually for Chicago. His rediscovery of books in Memphis at last awakened in him a hope for life’s possibilities. Words, he discovered, could be used as weapons to effect change.

Black Boy, subtitled A Record of Childhood and Youth, reads like a novel. It could be the story of any precocious black boy growing up in the South, for Wright makes no reference to his later success as a writer. He simply presents the experience of his growing up, uncluttered by the sorts of historical facts and data one might expect from an autobiography. The chapters remain untitled and conclude with Wright’s decision to head north toward Chicago.

Form and Content

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Black Boy traces the young Richard Wright’s troubled journey through the violence, ignorance, and poverty of the Jim Crow South. Originally intended as a much longer work, the autobiography focuses primarily on the racist attitudes Wright encountered as he moved from rural Mississippi and Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee. It also highlights the turmoil he suffered growing up in a supposedly cruel and often overbearing family environment. The book ends in 1925 with the nineteen-year-old Wright, having begun his literary apprenticeship, determined to become a writer and escape the nightmarish turbulence of the oppressive South.

The posthumously published American Hunger takes up where the earlier autobiography left off. It chronicles not only Wright’s disillusionment with the Communist Party, which he joined near the end of 1933, but also the difficulties he experienced as a poor African American living in the urban North. “What had I got out of living in America?” Wright asks at the end of the book. “I paced the floor, knowing that all I possessed were words and a dim knowledge that my country had shown me no examples of how to live a human life.” Wright vows to “hurl words” at his country in order to make it a safer and more promising place for all Americans.

In the early 1940’s, Wright considered himself a militant novelist; he thought his own biography would be of little interest to the American public. Writing disturbing, violent fiction such as the acclaimed novel Native Son (1940), which put to rest the myth that American racism confined itself only to the Deep South, provided him the voice he needed to help resist American injustice. Only after he traveled to Fisk University in Nashville in 1943 to speak to a group of sociology students did Wright realize the potential of his own life story. The mixed group of white and African American admirers responded enthusiastically as he recalled what it was like growing up during the early decades of the twentieth century. That night, Wright decided to abandon fiction temporarily and to string together his own thoughts and memories into a candid, personal narrative.

Wright wrote his complete autobiography, which he originally entitled American Hunger, in less than eight months, relying partly on a sketch he had written about himself in 1937 called “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow.” Eventually included in Uncle Tom’s Children (1938), his first collection of short stories, this early autobiographical piece recounts, in nine segments, the violence and resistance Wright had experienced in Jackson, Mississippi, and West Helena, Arkansas, where he spent most of his childhood, and in Memphis, where he spent his later adolescence and plotted his eventual journey north. The author’s expanded autobiography expounds on these episodes and more, including Wright’s flight from the South and his future assimilation into a Chicago slum. It also recalls his days as a young militant and the difficulties he encountered trying to make his living as a writer under the aegis of the Communist Party.

Edward Aswell, Wright’s editor at Harper & Brothers, praised the manuscript and agreed to publish it the following year. He suggested to Wright, however, that only the “Southern” section of the text be released. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which had agreed to feature the autobiography, objected to Wright’s criticism of the Communist Party and threatened to withdraw its support without specific revisions. Somewhat reluctantly, Wright accepted Aswell’s advice. Further delays postponed the publication until the following spring, when it appeared under the new title Black Boy: A Recollection of Childhood and Youth. Over the next several months, Wright’s recollections of his Chicago days were published separately as articles in various literary journals. They appeared collectively as American Hunger in 1977, seventeen years after the author’s death.

Black Boy is divided chronologically into fourteen chapters. It begins with two episodes that introduce most of the important people in Wright’s youth, including his parents and his Grandmother Wilson. On the opening page of the book, Wright recalls an accidental fire he set in his grandparents’ rural home and how he was beaten so severely afterward by his parents that he lost consciousness. The “fog of fear” that enveloped Wright following the beating stands as a fitting metaphor for the agonizing and painful relationship that he claims he experienced with his family while living in the South.

The second episode is set in Memphis and involves Wright’s gruesome killing of the family kitten. Wright had been playing with the noisy animal with his younger brother when their father, who had been trying to sleep, ordered his sons to “Kill that damn thing!” Wright knew that his father had only meant to quiet the pet, but his hatred for his father encouraged Wright to accept the statement literally. After he hanged the kitten, Wright realized that he had triumphed over his father. He was elated because he had finally discovered a way of throwing his criticism of his father into his father’s face. “I had made him feel that, if he whipped me for killing the kitten, I would never give serious weight to his words again,” Wright explains. “I had made him know that I felt he was cruel and I had done it without his punishing me.”

Wright recalls several other disturbing incidents in his troubled home: the day his father, who had deserted the family, humiliated his mother at a court hearing; his mother’s debilitating strokes, which left her paralyzed for months at a time; and the constant shufflings back and forth between distant relatives. He also details the numerous battles he had with Granny, his strict Seventh-day Adventist maternal grandmother, who repeatedly warned young Richard that he “would burn forever in the lake of fire” unless he converted and renounced his sinful ways. The family quarreled incessantly, and Wright often compared his living situation to that of a common criminal. “Wherever I found religion in my life I found strife,” Wright proclaims. He characterizes religion as “the attempt of one individual or group to rule another in the name of God.”

Black Boy is equally remembered for its depiction of Wright’s numerous encounters with racism and for the courage and dignity he tried to maintain while living in the oppressive South. In one gripping scene, Wright recalls how his Uncle Hoskins, who owned a thriving liquor business, was killed by a gang of jealous whites who coveted a share of his liquor profits. In order to avoid further danger, Wright’s family was forced to flee in the middle of the night. No matter where he lived in the South, Wright witnessed insult and false accusation, police brutality, rape, castration, and lynching—all at the hands of racist whites. Educated in the ethics of Jim Crow, he soon learned how to pitch his voice “to a low plane, trying to rob it of any suggestion of overtone or aggressiveness,” so that local whites would tolerate him.

Even in the more cosmopolitan Memphis, Wright experienced racial prejudice and quickly learned the numerous subjects that southern whites refused to discuss with African Americans. Despite its bigotry, however, the city environment did offer Wright new options, including the chance to discover the world of literature. In one of the book’s most memorable passages, Wright describes how, as an adolescent, he would forge notes in order to check out books from the city library. Each time he wanted new literature, he would hand the white librarian a sheet of paper that read, “Will you please let this nigger boy have some books by. . . .” Wright believed that the librarian would never suspect him of writing such a note if he actually referred to himself as a “nigger.” The trick worked. Wright read voraciously, and books by H. L. Mencken, Theodore Dreiser, and Sinclair Lewis taught him new ways of looking at the world. Convinced that his southern heritage would continue to terrorize him, Wright left Memphis for Chicago on December 27, 1927. He was nineteen years old.

American Hunger, a much shorter work of five chapters, begins with Wright’s arrival in “the flat black stretches” of Chicago. Initially, the northern city offered Wright little relief. As had been the case in Memphis, he had difficulty finding decent employment and had to take odd jobs washing dishes and delivering goods. By the following summer, he had acquired part-time work at a city post office; because of severe malnourishment, however, he failed his physical exam, and once again he had to seek menial employment to survive. Wright also experienced an unhealthy family environment. Shortly after his move north, he was forced to share a windowless, one-room apartment with his mother and younger brother. The “emotional atmosphere in the cramped quarters became tense, ugly, petty, bickering,” Wright remembers in American Hunger. The brutal hardships of the urban surroundings left him bewildered and lonely, as if he “had fled one insecurity and . . . embraced another.”

Wright comments extensively on his interactions with the Communist Party, which offered him a needed escape from some of his personal misery. As he recalls in the autobiography, he was invited one evening by a friend to attend his first John Reed Club meeting. At first he was skeptical, convinced that Communists cared little about minority rights and solicited African American membership merely to push a political agenda. When he finally accepted his friend’s offer, he decided to attend “in the capacity of an amused spectator.” After several meetings, however, Wright’s opinions started to change. He was impressed by “the scope and seriousness” of the club’s activities and quickly moved from the rank and file to group leadership. The club initiated Wright into the modern world and provided him sustainable relationships with both men and women for years to come.

Many of these relationships were literary, and Wright soon discovered that club members and other leftists associated with the Communist Party provided him the encouragement he needed to pursue his writing career. Wright helped form literary support groups and engaged in political debate about the future of America’s oppressed. Just as relationships with his family suffered in the face of poverty, however, so too did his association with Communists deteriorate. Although they recruited him for public appearances, many Communists, especially African American Communists, suspected Wright’s motives and often challenged him to debate. Wherever he turned, Wright was subjected to deceit and harassment. He was soon branded an “intellectual” and accused of plotting to undermine the Communist Party. Convinced that the artist and the committed activist stood at “opposite poles,” Wright severed his ties with the Communist Party in 1944.

Wright details other episodes that affected him while he was living in Chicago, including a rare humorous moment when he and his fellow workers disrupted a downtown medical research institute. Wright remembers how two older attendants got into a fistfight and accidentally knocked over the steel tiers containing scores of animals used in scientific experiments. The frightened workers quickly straightened the tiers, but they were left with the unwanted task of placing the cancerous rats, diabetic dogs, and other infected animals into their respective cages. Luckily, Wright and his cohorts were never discovered. In fact, as Wright ironically points out, they were left to marvel at how the fate of the research institute rested in “ignorant, black hands.”

Form and Content

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

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 and culture. Although he is subsequently punished for his incendiary efforts, he continues to act as an “ethical criminal,” a phrase from one of his later works.

The narrator usually finds a way to justify his actions as an expression of his need for authenticity and freedom. He defies the authority of his schoolteacher, Aunt Addie, by refusing to inform on a schoolmate, thus taking the punishment himself. He also learns to defend himself against the personal attacks and physical assaults of his uncle, Tom Wilson. He turns down his principal’s offer to read a prepared text and instead chooses to compose and deliver his own valedictory graduation speech. Yet Wright also learns that, in the segregated South, the privileged action of open defiance can be practiced only against members of his own family and race.

It is in his confrontations with his religious fundamentalist grandmother that Wright first learns to substitute the art of subterfuge for his instinctive impulses toward open, childish defiance and rebellion. Because his grandmother not only looks white but also, like real white people, possesses the resources to impose obedience, Wright concludes that she must be deceived as if she were white. Because his addiction to the reading and ultimately the writing of fictional works cannot be admitted openly in a household in which every work of the imagination (except for the Bible) is considered to be a “work of the devil,” Wright earns the privilege of privacy in his room by pretending to practice religious study and prayer.

Later, he applied the same art of deception by displaying tacit submission to white authority, agreeing to fill his predetermined role in segregated society. By pretending to be illiterate and obtuse, he succeeded in hiding his true identity, his forbidden aspirations and tastes. In the end, through deception, he gained access to many volumes of forbidden literature from the local library and obtained the blessing of his white bosses for his departure for the North.

Bibliography

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Andrews, William L., and Douglas Taylor, eds. Richard Wright’s “Black Boy” (“American Hunger”): A Casebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Compilation of responses to Black Boy that includes contemporary criticism by such writers as W. E. B. Du Bois and Ralph Ellison, as well as later academic evaluations.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Richard Wright’s “Black Boy.” New York: Chelsea House, 2006. Collects essays on Wright’s autobiography by leading scholars. Includes thematic studies, as well as comparisons of Wright’s work to that of Maya Angelou and to the African American autobiographical tradition generally.

Fabre, Michel. The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright. Translated by Isabel Barzun. New York: William Morrow, 1973. Generally considered the definitive biography of Wright. Details the period in which Wright wrote the autobiographies. Also offers an in-depth critical evaluation of each text.

Gibson, Donald B. “Richard Wright’s Black Boy and the Trauma of Autobiographical Rebirth.” Calloloo 9 (Summer, 1986): 492-498. Offers a short but informative analysis of Black Boy, arguing that the first chapter, in which Wright distances himself from his environment, sets up an outline for the rest of the text.

Mechling, Jay. “The Failure of Folklore in Richard Wright’s Black Boy.” Journal of American Folklore 104 (Summer, 1991): 275-294. Points out several passages in Black Boy that highlight Wright’s use of songs, riddles, and stories, but generally argues that Wright’s text fails as authentic folklore.

Stepto, Robert. “Literacy and Ascent: Black Boy.” In Richard Wright, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. Shows how Black Boy “revoices” Wright’s own Native Son and borrows from various tropes in African American narrative literature.

Wright, Richard. Later Works. Vol. 2 in Works. Edited by Arnold Rampersad. New York: Library of America, 1991. Includes an informative section of notes by Rampersad pertaining to Black Boy and American Hunger. Rampersad argues that the Library of America edition is the “complete text” that Wright presented to his publishers. Points out how the Book-of-the-Month Club influenced Wright’s editor and persuaded him to convince Wright to publish his autobiography in two volumes.

Historical Context

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

World War II

Black Boy was released in 1945, just as World War II was nearing its conclusion. During the same period, the novel climbed to the top of best-seller lists, and the U.S. 9th and 1st Armored Divisions successfully secured Ally control on the western bank of the Rhine, while U.S. B-24 bombers targeted Tokyo. The European conflict ended on May 8, 1945. However, in the Pacific, the war continued until August, when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The war's end came with a staggering loss of life, estimated at 54.8 million.

The Cold War was still a few years away, making 1945 seem like a year of triumph for the Allies and the ideals of democratic capitalism. The United States was on the brink of reaching the peak of its industrial-economic power, largely due to the trade imbalance caused by the war. Hollywood enthusiastically supported this narrative with films depicting the abundant and ideal American lifestyle. However, the truth was far more complex. As a nation, Americans had demonstrated their wealth by the massive resources they committed to the Allied effort. Individually, though, prosperity was not as widespread. For minorities, the situation was dire. African Americans lived under Jim Crow laws in the Southern U.S., while Native American tribes such as the Dakota, Navajo, and Apache were confined to reservations that barely differed from concentration camps. Japanese-Americans were just beginning to be released from internment camps, where they had been held under suspicion during the U.S. conflict with Japan. For these minority groups, the Hollywood portrayal was far from reality, and those who had served in the war, like Richard Wright's grandfather, often found little reward upon returning home.

In a sense, these issues were just beginning to emerge in 1945, as the transition from a wartime industrial complex to a peacetime economy had yet to occur. Signs of upcoming challenges appeared throughout the year. Workers in automobile factories went on strike, yet the American Gross National Product still neared $211 billion. Advances in agricultural practices boosted food production both domestically and globally, leading to the end of food rationing in the U.S., although it persisted in Europe. The problem in America was never one of wealth, as Wright's work highlights, but rather one of distribution. While America was prosperous in 1945, its minority populations remained impoverished.

A societal uprising was starting to emerge from this economic disparity. As soldiers returned home throughout the year, America began transitioning to a peacetime economy, moving workers away from military roles. To facilitate this transition, imagery shifted from promoting the war effort to promoting family life and consumerism. For women, this meant changing the image from a factory worker to a homemaker, dressed in a gown, caring for a child. This change coincided with a media revolution as America increased its private television ownership from just 5,000 sets to the almost universal presence it enjoys today. The U.S. government launched its most successful and lucrative investment ever—the GI Bill—which enabled returning soldiers to pursue education or purchase homes. This had two significant outcomes. Firstly, it prevented the already challenging transition to a peacetime job market from worsening, as soldiers filled universities instead. Secondly, after some time, there was a dramatic rise in the number of college-educated workers available.

The ideal of a peaceful world seemed more attainable than ever following World War II. Atomic energy promised to deter large-scale military aggression, and the creation of the United Nations in June 1945 provided a platform for nonviolent conflict resolution and collaborative actions among world governments. This was the hope, but reality was unfolding differently in Palestine, where Jewish settlers increased their harassment of British forces controlling the area, and in China, where Russians and Americans attempted to choose the right side in the emerging conflict between the revolting Communists led by Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek and his followers.

Literary Style

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Narration

Drawing from his own life, Richard Wright crafted a remarkable narrative in Black Boy, a first-person account of a young boy navigating the harsh realities of Southern racism. This story illustrates the principles of life under the Jim Crow laws, concepts Wright had previously examined in "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow," found in Uncle Tom's Children. Through the instructive story in Black Boy, Wright aimed to challenge and change the racist attitudes prevalent in white America. He believed that a compelling protagonist in a well-crafted novel could impact race relations more effectively than any political discourse or decision. By drawing on his personal experiences and channeling them through a first-person perspective, Black Boy provides an unflinching look at the African American experience, though it does not propose solutions.

Wright employed the first-person narrative to offer an objective perspective that verges on existentialism. He achieved this by chronicling his own growth similar to the way French authors like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre portrayed their leading characters. The events and individuals Richard encounters are developed only as much as necessary to tell his story, making him the central focus. For instance, the boy in the fourth chapter who seeks to save Richard's soul is merely an extension of Granny's "machinery," with Granny herself symbolizing the oppressive Christian dogma.

An example of how Richard briefly mentions characters only when they affect him is seen in a scene where he describes a confrontation among unnamed boys in a schoolyard. He refers to the associations with other black boys as a fraternity, not built on conscious friendship, but on spontaneous assembly. The boys come together effortlessly and disperse just as easily. Emotional ties are neither described nor sustained—not even with Griggs, who acts like a brotherly figure to Richard. For Richard, the focus is on his own burgeoning consciousness, the narration of his awakening, and his eventual escape to the North.

Structure

Black Boy unfolds as a collection of interconnected episodes from Richard's life, giving the novel a cinematic quality. It feels as though Richard is documenting his own life, with each chapter serving as a distinct scene transitioning into the next narrative. Each chapter concludes with a sense of forward movement rather than a resolution. The novel is easily imagined by readers, thanks not only to its naturalistic writing style but also to the absence of other narrative voices. Central to this structure is Richard's evolving understanding and use of language. His entire world is perceived through his expanding consciousness, creating an existential worldview that is comprehensible only through his ascribed meanings.

This situation can be understood by recognizing that Richard was restricted from freely moving, shouting, or asking questions. Instead, he had to remain silent, avoid punishment, and satisfy his relentless curiosity for understanding on his own. Consequently, Richard developed a sense of conscious alienation; he understood he was being controlled but couldn't imagine any other way. This led him to become deeply interested in the world around him, seeking clues about reality. Yet, he maintains this interest from a detached perspective, similar to how he feigns disinterest in food when hungry, as eating would remind him of his embarrassing hunger.

Literary Techniques

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Wright took creative liberties with his own life story to craft the remarkable Black Boy, a first-person narrative about a young boy growing up amidst the oppressive racism of the South. This story illustrates the principles of living under the Jim Crow system, concepts Wright previously explored in "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow," published in Uncle Tom's Children. Through the instructive tale of Black Boy, Wright aimed to challenge and change the racist attitudes of white America. He believed that a well-crafted protagonist in a compelling novel could advance race relations more effectively than any political speech or ruling. Thus, he drew from his own experiences, using a first-person perspective to authentically depict the life of black Americans without proposing solutions.

Wright employed a first-person narrative to offer an objective viewpoint that borders on what would later be known as existentialism. His portrayal of personal growth is akin to the style of French authors such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. The events and characters encountered by Richard are depicted only to the extent necessary for the story, making Richard effectively the sole character. For instance, the boy in the fourth chapter who tries to save Richard's soul merely extends Granny's "machinery," and Granny herself embodies the oppressive system of Christianity.

An example of Richard's tendency to gloss over other characters, mentioning them only when they impact his consciousness, is seen in a scene where he describes a confrontation among unnamed boys in a schoolyard. He refers to the associations of other black boys as a fraternity—not a deliberate friendship, but a spontaneous gathering. The boys easily come together and just as easily disperse. Emotional connections are neither described nor maintained—not even with Griggs, who acts brotherly toward Richard. What matters to Richard are his own awakening consciousness, the narrative of his awakening, and his eventual escape to the North.

The structure of Black Boy consists of a series of interconnected episodes from Richard's life. The novel unfolds like a movie, as Richard essentially creates a documentary of himself. Each chapter serves as both a scene and a story, concluding with a sense of progress rather than closure. The novel is easily visualized, not only due to its naturalistic style but also because no other voices interfere. Central to this structure is Richard's growing appreciation for and use of language. The entire world is filtered through Richard's expanding consciousness into an existential Weltanschauung (worldview), understandable only through the meanings he assigns.

This can be understood by recognizing that Richard was restricted from freely moving—running, shouting, or asking questions. Instead, he had to remain silent, avoid punishments, and find answers on his own. Consequently, Richard developed a sense of conscious alienation: he was aware of his limitations but could not see any alternatives. As a result, he became intensely curious about life around him, seeking clues about the real world. Nevertheless, he kept this interest detached and objective. For instance, when he was hungry, he feigned disinterest in food to avoid being reminded of his embarrassing hunger.

Ideas for Group Discussions

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Wright's Black Boy delves into the individual's role within a society shaped by racism.

1. Select a novel by Ann Petry or another author from the "Wright School" like Chester Himes, Willard Savoy, or Philip B. Kaye, and analyze it alongside Black Boy. If you choose Petry's The Street, focus on the differences in gender perspectives and the experiences of urban Black individuals in post-World War II America.

2. Does Wright offer less critique of America in Black Boy because Richard ultimately finds a better life in the North?

3. Consider the concept of perception: Wright frequently notes his initial refusal to conform to Jim Crow etiquette and the subsequent necessity to do so. Are there societal roles we adopt based on gender, class, or racial perceptions? Are these roles shaped by information from television? What behavioral perceptions are instilled in us by the media?

4. The Civil Rights movement effectively ended Jim Crow laws. Anti-hate and human rights legislation are being implemented nationwide, making the justice system increasingly intolerant of discrimination. Legally, much has changed since the era depicted in the novel. In terms of racial discrimination, have societal attitudes and behaviors evolved in tandem with these legal changes?

5. Does it make a difference that Wright uses his own name and the actual names of his family members in this novel? How much of Black Boy is autobiography, and how much is fiction?

6. Examine the imagery of light and dark in the novel. How are white characters depicted?

Social Concerns

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

When Richard Wright penned his acclaimed autobiographical novel, Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth, he pioneered a new genre for post-World War II black literature and became a forerunner of the Black Arts movements in the 1960s. Released in 1945 as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, Black Boy was met with great enthusiasm by readers and topped best-seller lists, selling 400,000 copies. The novel's commercial success solidified Wright's reputation established by his 1940 novel, Native Son. Due to these two influential works, Wright is regarded as a pivotal figure in twentieth-century American literature. His profound impact on contemporary African American writing is evident in the works of James Baldwin (Another Country, 1962) and Ralph Ellison (The Invisible Man, 1953).

Since Black Boy is an autobiographical novel, understanding Wright's early life is essential for analyzing the work. Wright was born on September 4, 1908, at Rucker's Plantation in Roxie, Mississippi. His parents were Ellen Wilson, a schoolteacher, and Nathan Wright, a sharecropper. His brother Leon was born in 1910, and a year later, the family relocated to Ellen's parents' home in Natchez, the setting for the opening of Black Boy.

Not long after the family moved to Memphis in 1913, Wright's father abandoned them. Over the following years, Ellen struggled to provide for her sons but eventually fell victim to a crippling cycle of illness. She relocated her boys to the home of her affluent sister and brother-in-law, Maggie and Silas Hoskins, in Elaine, Arkansas. However, after Hoskins was murdered by a white mob, Maggie, Ellen, and the children fled to West Helena.

Due to Ellen's illness, the care of her sons was shared among extended family members. Eventually, Wright moved to his grandmother's house to be closer to his mother. In 1920, he enrolled at the Seventh-Day Adventist School, where his Aunt Aggie was a teacher. Later, he transferred to Jim Hill School, where he made new friends and skipped the fifth grade. During his time at Smith-Robertson Junior High School, he published his first short story, "The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre," in the Jackson Southern Register. After graduating as the valedictorian in 1925, Wright relocated to Memphis, and his mother and brother joined him in 1927. A year later, he moved the family to Chicago.
Black Boy transforms significant moments from Wright's early life into a coming-of-age narrative. The novel's protagonist, Richard, grows up in the American South, where "Jim Crow" laws restrict black life. These laws enforced racial segregation, treating black individuals as second-class citizens. Wright's novel highlights two main forces supporting this system: hunger and language. He illustrates how hunger compels the oppressed to more desperate actions, and how he survives Jim Crow by using language as a coping tool. Literature provides him an internal escape from the pressures of living without the freedom to express his human dignity. Thus, Wright's novel is a compelling tale of an individual's fight for freedom of expression.

When Black Boy was published in 1945, World War II was nearing its end. The conflict in Europe concluded on May 8, 1945, while in the Pacific, it continued until August. The Cold War had not yet started, and 1945 marked a year of triumph for the Allies and the ideals of democratic capitalism. The United States was reaching the peak of its industrial and economic power, a result of trade imbalances created by the war. Hollywood perpetuated the myth of abundance through films portraying American life as affluent and ideal. However, the reality was different. America was a wealthy nation capable of dedicating vast resources to support the Allied cause, but for individuals, life was more modest. For minorities in America, conditions were dire: blacks faced segregation in the South; the Dakotan, Navajo, Apache, and other tribal groups lived in reservations that were scarcely better than concentration camps; and Japanese-Americans were being released from internment camps where they had been held during the United States' conflict with Japan. For these minority groups, the Hollywood image was unattainable, especially for those who had served in the war. Like Richard Wright's grandfather, who was injured in the Civil War and later denied benefits due to a clerical error, they fought for America but gained little from their sacrifices upon returning home.

In 1945, the challenges were just starting to emerge because the unemployment expected from shifting from a wartime to a peacetime economy had not yet materialized. That year, indications of impending difficulties began to appear. Workers in the automobile industry went on strike, yet despite these strikes, the American Gross National Product nearly reached $211 billion. Advances in agricultural techniques boosted food production both domestically and globally, leading to the end of food rationing in the United States, although it persisted in Europe. The issue in America was never about abundance but, as highlighted in Wright's work, a matter of distribution. America was wealthy in 1945, but its minority populations remained impoverished.

Compare and Contrast

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

1940s: Race relations were fraught with tension, with Jim Crow laws legally enforced in several states and practiced within the U.S. military.

Today: The Civil Rights movement has eradicated Jim Crow laws. Anti-hate legislation and human rights laws are being implemented nationwide, making the justice system increasingly intolerant of discrimination. However, incidents like the burning of black churches and the debates over affirmative action in California reveal that race relations are not yet perfect.

1940s: In the South, only $17 was allocated per black student annually for tuition, compared to $35 for each white student. Richard was neither required nor able to continue education beyond the ninth grade, which he notes was equivalent to the eighth grade.

Today: Reductions in tuition assistance have made college nearly inaccessible for the poorest students. In public schools, racial disparities in spending have been eliminated, but overall educational funding is declining due to congressional budget cuts. Moreover, funding is not distributed equally, as affluent districts can and do invest significantly more in their children's education than less affluent areas.

1940s: America sought to keep its citizens employed and began establishing a safety net to ensure no one went hungry, lacked care, or couldn't retire.

Today: From Wisconsin to California, legislators are dismantling the elements that constitute the American safety net.

Literary Precedents

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Wright's literary contributions are often compared to those of the Chicago Realists, including Nelson Algren (1909-1981) and James T. Farrell (1904-1979), who penned novels depicting life in Chicago's slums. Moreover, Wright is recognized as one of the most influential African American authors of the early twentieth century. He shares this distinction with luminaries such as W. E. B. DuBois (1868-1963) and James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), as well as leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including Alain Locke (1886-1954), Langston Hughes (1902-1967), Jean Toomer (1894-1967), and Zora Neale Hurston (1901-1960).

Adaptations

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

In 1989, Caedmon/New York released an audio recording of Black Boy performed by Brock Peters.

Media Adaptations

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Brock Peters recorded Black Boy, and this recording was released in 1989 by Caedmon/New York.

Bibliography

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Suggested Readings

Butterfield, Stephen. Black Autobiography in America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1974. Essays on slave narratives and other influences upon black autobiography as well as essays on specific writers including Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Frederick Douglass.

Fabre, Michel. The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright. Translated by Isabel Barzun. Rev. ed. New York: William Morrow, 1973. A significant, and probably the definitive, biography, with much useful information about Wright’s literary works, including Black Boy.

Felgar, Robert. Richard Wright. Boston: Twayne, 1980. A useful overview of the author and his works.

Gibson, Donald B. “Richard Wright’s Black Boy and the Trauma of Autobiographical Rebirth,” in Callaloo. IX (Summer, 1986), pp. 492-498.

Howland, Jacob. “Black Boy: A Story of Soul-Making and a Quest for the Real,” in Phylon. XLVII (June, 1986), pp. 117-127.

Mack, Richard, and Frank E. Moorer. Richard Wright: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984. A collection of essays examining the writer and his works, including a chronology of important dates in Wright’s life.

Margolies, Edward. The Art of Richard Wright. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969. A general study, including a brief discussion of Black Boy as a film documentary.

Porter, Horace A. “The Horror and the Glory: Richard Wright’s Portrait of the Artist in Black Boy and American Hunger,” in Richard Wright: A Collection of Critical Essays, 1984. Edited by Frank E. Moorer.

Stepto, Robert T. Behind the Veil: A Study of Afro-American Narrative. 2d ed. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1979.

Thaddeus, Janice. “The Metamorphosis of Richard Wright’s Black Boy,” in American Literature. LVII (May, 1985), pp. 199-214.

Wright, Richard. Conversations with Richard Wright. Edited by Keneth Kinnamon and Michel Fabre. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993.

Bibliography and Further Reading

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Sources

Robert A. Bone, The Negro Novel in America, revised edition, Yale University Press, 1965, pages 141-52.

Ralph Ellison, "Richard Wright's Blues," in The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison, edited by John F. Callahan, Modern Library, 1995, pages 128-44.

Maryemma Graham and Jerry W. Ward, Jr., "Black Boy (American Hunger): Freedom to Remember," in Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints, edited by Nicholas J. Karohdes, Less Burress, and John M. Kean, Scarecrow Press, 1993, pages 109-16.

Sinclair Lewis, review in Esquire, June 23, 1945.

Edward Margolies, The Art of Richard Wright, Southern Illinois University Press, 1969.

Ronald Sanders, "Richard Wright and the Sixties," in Midstream, Vol. XXV, No. 7, August/September 1968, pages 28-40.

Lionel Trilling, review in The Nation, April 7, 1945.

Roger Whitlow, "Chapter 4. 1940-1960 Urban Realism and Beyond," in Black American Literature: A Critical History, Nelson Hall, 1973, pages 107-46.

Further Reading

Harold Bloom, editor, Richard Wright (Modern Critical Views), Chelsea, 1987.
This collection of essays covers all of Wright's work, including an analysis of Black Boy's significance within the black literary tradition.

Edward D. Clark, "Richard Wright," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 76: Afro-American Writers, 1940-1955, Gale Research, 1988, pages 199-221.
Clark discusses Wright's role in American literary history as a precursor to the post-World War II black novel.

Ralph Ellison, "The World and the Jug," in The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison, edited by John F. Callahan, Modern Library, 1995, pages 155-88.
Ellison delivers a compelling response to Irving Howe's commentary in "Black Boys and Native Sons."

Michel Fabre, The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright, William Morrow, 1973.
This comprehensive biography, translated from French, assesses Wright as a "representative man" and a major voice of his era.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and K. A. Appiah, editors, Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past and Present, Amistad, 1993.
A compilation of critical essays on Wright's works, informed by the unabridged version. Included is an essay by Horace A. Porter that delves into the parallels between Richard and Stephen Dedalus.

Donald B. Gibson, "Richard Wright: Aspects of His Afro-American Literary Relations," in Critical Essays on Richard Wright, edited by Yoshinobu Hakutani, G. K. Hall, 1982.
Gibson explores why Wright's literature is "so clearly distinguished" from other black authors, particularly comparing him to Charles Chesnutt and Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Irving Howe, "Black Boys and Native Sons," in A World More Attractive, Horizon, 1963.
Howe's renowned essay examines and contrasts the theme of "protest" in the works of Wright, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison.

David Ray and Robert M. Farnsworth, Richard Wright: Impressions and Perspectives, University of Michigan Press, 1971.
A distinctive collection of writings by and about Wright, including personal insights, memories, and letters.

John M. Reilly, editor, Richard Wright: The Critical Reception, Burt Franklin, 1978.
An examination of the initial critical reactions to Wright's work, featuring excerpts from over sixty early reviews of Black Boy.

Sidonie Ann Smith, "Richard Wright's Black Boy: The Creative Impulse as Rebellion," in The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. V, No. 1, Fall 1972, pp. 123-36.
In her essay, Smith interprets Wright's autobiography as a slave narrative due to its thematic similarities with pre-Civil War accounts.

Martha Stephens, "Richard Wright's Fiction. A Reassessment," Georgia Review, 1971, pp. 450-70.
Stephens evaluates all of Wright's works and considers the pieces written before Native Son to better showcase Wright's skill compared to his more commercially successful or later works.

Ellen Wright and Michel Fabre, editors, Richard Wright Reader, Harper and Row, 1978.
This collection features some of Wright's finest writings, including selections from his fiction, poetry, essays, and critical works.

Get Ahead with eNotes

Start your 48-hour free trial to access everything you need to rise to the top of the class. Enjoy expert answers and study guides ad-free and take your learning to the next level.

Get 48 Hours Free Access
Previous

Characters

Next

Critical Essays

Loading...