Background of the Author

African-American writer and poet Richard Wright was

born on September 4, 1908, in Roxie, Mississippi, and published
his first short story at the age of 16. Later, he found employment
with the Federal Writers Project and received critical acclaim
for Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of four stories. Hes well
known for the 1940 bestseller Native Son and his 1945 autobiography Black Boy. Wright
died in Paris, France, on November 28, 1960.

Early Years
Richard Nathaniel Wright was born on September 4, 1908, near Natchez,
Mississippi. The grandson of slaves and the son of a sharecropper who was Wright
largely raised by his mother, a caring woman who became a single parent after her
husband left the family when Wright was five years old.

Schooled in Jackson, Mississippi, Wright only managed to get a ninth-grade

education, but he was a voracious reader and showed early on that he had a gift with
words. When he was 16, a short story of his was published in a Southern AfricanAmerican newspaper.

After leaving school, Wright worked a series of odd job, and in his free time he
delved into American literature. To pursue his literary interests, Wright went as far as to
forge notes so he could take out books on a white co workers library card, as blacks were
not allowed to use the public libraries in Memphis.

The more he read about the world, the more Wright longed to see it and make a
permanent break from the Jim Crow South. "I want my life to count for something," he
told a friend.

The Young Writer

In 1927, Wright finally left the South and moved to Chicago, where he worked at
a post office and also swept streets. But like so many Americans struggling through the
Depression, Wright felt prey to bouts of poverty. Along the way, his frustration with
American capitalism led him to join the Communist Party in 1932.

When he could, Wright continued to plow through books and write. He eventually
joined the Federal Writers Project, and in 1937, with dreams of making it as a writer, he
moved to New York City, where he was told he stood a better chance of getting
published.

Commercial and Critical Success

A year later, Wright published Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of four stories,
and the book proved to be a significant turning point in his career. The stories earned him
a $500 prize from Story magazine and led to a 1939 Guggenheim Fellowship.

More acclaim followed in 1940 with the publication of the novel Native Son,
which told the story of 20-year-old African-American male Bigger Thomas. The book
brought Wright fame and freedom to write. It was a regular atop the bestseller lists and
became the first book by an African-American writer to be selected by the Book-of-the-

Month Club. A stage version (by Wright and Paul Green) followed in 1941, and Wright
himself later played the title role in a film version made in Argentina.

In 1945, Wright published Black Boy, which offered a moving account of his
childhood and youth in the South. It also depicts extreme poverty and his accounts of
racial violence against blacks. The book greatly advanced Wright's reputation, but after
living mainly in Mexico (19406), he had become so disillusioned with both the
Communist Party and white America that he went off to Paris, where he lived the rest of
his life as an expatriate.

He continued to write novels, including The Outsider (1953) and The Long
Dream (1958),

and

nonfiction,

such

as Black

Power (1954)

and White

Man,

Listen! (1957), and was regarded by many writers as an inspiration. His naturalistic
fiction no longer has the standing it once enjoyed, but his life and works remain
exemplary.

Wright died of a heart attack on November 28, 1960, in Paris, France.

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/wrights-short-stories/richard wrights-biography

BLACK BOY
ELEMENTS OF THE STORY
CHARACTERS

RICHARD WRIGHT (DICK)

The first things we see Richard do are burn his house down and kill a cat. Not too
promising for our young narrator. He starts fighting other people instead of innocent little
kittens. At school, he gets into fights with the other boys on the first day, he is also not
afraid to fight with his own family members. He would never hurt his mom, but his aunt
or his uncle.
Richard has turned many of his faults into qualities that will make him an awardwinning, world-famous author. The new and improved Richard 2.0 is a master of calm.
Even when he is dealing with the annoyingly ridiculous Communist Party, Richard resists
the urge to settle his problems with some old-fashioned fisticuffs. Instead of fighting, he
wants to "try to build a bridge of words between him and that world outside".

MRS. WRIGHT (ELLA WILSON WRIGHT)

Mrs. Wright is 1) Richards mom. 2) Her husband leaves her when Richard and his
brother are still little kids and 3) it breaks her heart. 4) She tries to work to support her
sons, but soon a lifetime of illness makes her incapable of working.
After a while, Richards mother changes from a punitive lady into a bed-ridden
invalid. After a certain point, thats all that she is. Even though lying in bed paralyzed
doesnt do much for her character development, it has an important role in the story and
in Richards development. She becomes a symbol of suffering.

MR. WRIGHT (NATHANIEL WRIGHT)

He was the lawgiver of the family and Richard never laughed in his presence. Richard
used to lurk timidly in the kitchen doorway and watch his huge body sitting slumped at

the table. He stared at him with awe as his father gulped his beer from a tin bucket, as he
ate long and heavily, sighed, belched, closed his eyes to nod on a stuffed belly. He was
quite fat and his bloated stomach always lapped over his belt. He was always a stranger
to Richard.

"GRANNY" WILSON

Richards Granny is hot-tempered, illiterate, crazy religious, and convinced that

books are going to let the demons in. When she catches Ella reading to Richard, she calls
her an "evil gal" and shouts that she doesnt want any of that "Devil stuff" in her house.

GRANDPA WILSON (PAPA, RICHARD WILSON)

Grandpa ran away from slavery to fight in the Civil War, but as Richard says, "he was
convinced that the war had not really ended, that it would start again". Well, imagine
risking your life to run away from your slave master, making it to the other side of the
country, fighting in gruelling battles, and then winning.

ELLA

Ella is that shes a "remote and dreamy" schoolteacher who likes books. She hooks
Richard on books. Its also worth noting that she is Richards first crush.

AUNT ADDIE

She probably Richards least favorite aunt. The entire time they live together, its like
some kind of Mortal Kombat battle, with each one jamming on the buttons for the
finishing moves.

AUNT MAGGIE
She is in Richards life more than any of the other aunts and uncles, and she even

goes with Richards family to the North. Richard even starts to feel like shes "another
mother" to him. For all that, we dont know much about Aunt Maggie except that shes
"of an open, talkative disposition".

Uncle Clark and Aunt Jody

After Richard's mom has her stroke, they take him in. They run a tight ship. As soon
as Richard gets to their house, he gets his list of chores: bring in wood and coal, split
kindling, lay a fire, bring in water, and then spend the afternoon studying.

UNCLE TOM

His family moves into Grannys house when she needs some more money for rent,
and right away he and Richard "began to get on each others nerves".

UNCLE HOSKINS

He doesnt make much of an impression, but his dinner table sure does: its "so
loaded with food that Richard could scarcely believe it was real", and he eats until his
stomach hurts.

"UNCLE / PROFESSOR" MATTHEWS

He is seriously creepy, as we know from his description: "His lips were thin and his
eyelids seemed never to blink. I felt something cold and remote in him and when he
called me I would not go to him".

AUNT CLEO

He takes in Richards family when they flee to the North. Her husband abandoned
her, and no wonder: just like his father, Richard says, Aunt Cleos husband was "a
product of a southern plantation".

THE COMMUNISTS

These guys are Lenin fan boys. They walk, talk, dress, and act just like Dear Leader
over in Mother Russia even though they were born and raised in the good ol US of A.
They "rolled their rs in Continental style, pronouncing party as parrrtee," and "stood
straight, threw back their heads, brought the edge of the right palm down hammerlike into
the outstretched left palm in a series of jerky motions to pound their points home".

BUDDY NEALSON

He is a head honcho, and he is it for the Communist party in Chicago. He comes with
an impressive resume: hes made speeches in the Kremlin, spoken to Stalin, and was
basically in charge of everything related to black people for the Communist party.

ED GREEN

He is a blockhead. We can describe him as "organically capable of only the most

elementary reactions. His fear-haunted life made him suspicious of everything that did
not look as he looked, that did not act as he acted, that did not talk as he talked, that did
not feel as he felt".

ROSS

He is Richards subject for his biography project, and no wonder: hes under
indictment for inciting a riot, and hes gotten on the bad side of the Communists. In other
words, someone Richard can relate to. He is like "a bundle of the weaknesses and virtues
of a man struggling blindly between two societies, of a man living on the margin of a
culture".

COMRADE YOUNG

He is skinny, confused, and doesnt answer half of their questions. He has no money
and wants to sleep on the couch in the club? He becomes a respected member of the
party. Everyone admires his artwork, although Richard admits that the paintings are way
over his head.

GRIGGS

He is the only "friend" that we ever see with Richard. Hes also the only person who
gives Richard advice instead of just ordering him around. Griggs is something like a big
brother to Richard, although his advice isnt always the best.

MRS. MOSS AND BESS MOSS

At first, meeting Mrs. Moss is like sunshine on a cloudy day. Shes nice, funny, and
even gives Richard a discount on his room. Richard meets Bess, Mrs. Mosss daughter,
and five hours after he moves in theyre both talking about marriage and inheritance.

MR. OLIN AND HARRISON

Mr. Olin and Harrison are the two people involved with Richards unintentional Fight
Club experience. Mr. Olin tells Richard that Harrison wants to fight him. This is a big fat
lie, and it turns out that Harrisons boss is saying the same thing to Harrison about
Richard. They make Richard carry a knife even though he doesnt want it,

WHITE PEOPLE WHO ARE NICE TO RICHARD

Mr. Crane is Richards boss at the Optical Company who encourages him to go north.
Mr. Falk was a co-worker who let Richard borrow his library card. Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman
were Richards first white bosses up North, who he suspected of hating him even though
they liked him.
SETTINGS

THE SOUTH DURING JIM CROW

If you are a black person, this is not the place that you want to be. No one likes Jim
Crow. Well, what is there to like about discrimination, segregation, and the Ku Klux Klan
roaming free in the streets.

HOUSES,

APARTMENTS,

AND

ROOMS

IN

THE

SOUTHERN

COUNTRYSIDE
Richard spends most of his time hopping from one place to another. Because his
family can never make rent, they are always moving to a smaller, dirtier home. At one

point, theyre living in "one half of a double corner house in front of which ran a stagnant
ditch carrying sewage".
At the same time, Richard is terrorized by the everyday violence of the South, and
especially by the increase of violence during the race riots. No home, no safety, and no
security: no wonder he wants out.

THE NORTH DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION

North is the land of plenty where black and white people live together in equal
harmony.

COMMUNISM

During the Great Depression, people felt betrayed by the government and by
capitalism. The Communist Party lured people in with promises that they knew the
real way to achieve progress and equality. Their rhetoric was especially appealing to
black people, like Richard, because they claimed to represent the hopes and dreams of
oppressed people and minorities all over the world.
PLOT ANALYSIS
EXPOSITION
Richard and his family are small-town country folk. They dont have a lot, but
what they have is enough for them to get by. Like any old-school parents, Richards mom
and dad run a tight ship. The thing is, Richard is a troublemaker, so hes constantly

running into problems. Thats everything we need to know to start the story, because his
problemsa little fascination with firelaunch us into the tale.
RISING ACTION
Richards dad runs away with another woman, so the family has no money.
Richards mom tries to work, but she gets so sick that she cant even move. Richard is
hungry. Hes an alcoholic by the time hes six and working before hes finished middle
school. And hes starting to figure out that some people will hate him just because his
skin is brown. The only high point is that Richard has just discovered the love of his life:
literature.
CLIMAX
Richard has moved to the North, where he can be free of racism and follow his
dream of being a writer. Money is good. His family is happy. This is definitely the turning
point of the story, because Richards life does a total 180.
FALLING ACTION
The Great Depression messes up all of Richards plans. He loses his job. He has
to move to a worn-down apartment. He has to work so hard at a shady job that he doesnt
even have time to read. Not only that, but he gets mixed up with the Communist Party.
His struggles with that group are almost as bad as the racism he experienced in the South,
and at this point were still not sure how the whole thing will turn out.
RESOLUTION

When hes alone again, he realizes what really was the most important thing in his
life is writing. So, Richard sits down, picks up his pen, and does what he was born to do.
Turns out, he wasnt just born to cause trouble. He was also born to write.
THEMES OF THE STORY

RACE

What is race? Why does everyone care about it so much? How can we learn to
overcome racism? Who keeps racism going? These are the questions that Richard asks as
soon as he is old enough to ask them. (For comparison, here are some of the questions we
were asking ourselves at the same age: do I really have to learn algebra? How can I get a
bigger allowance without having to do more chores? Will my friends laugh at me if I
wear the same jeans twice in one week?) Hes an observant kid, and he can see even the
North doesnt let him escape his race.

VIOLENCE

In Black Boy, fighting is just a part of Richards life. He fights at home. He fights at
school. Thats just how it is, and it seems like thats how its always going to be. But
Richard manages to break free. When he grows up, Richard tries to leave behind his
violent lifestyleeven when his new friends want him to fight. Its almost as though
Wright thinks that a society based around race is always going to be violentthat
violence is built into a system in which people are differentiated based on the color of
their skin.

SOCIETY AND CLASS

Peer pressure, just like middle schoolits what makes the world go round. It can
make you join a church, make you steal, even make you fight when you dont even want
to. In Black Boy, society is practically a personified enemy that steals your dreams and
crushes your spirit.

ISOLATION

In Black Boy, isolation is way more complicated than it seems. It even has stages. At
first, Richard is forced into isolation. He doesnt want to be alone, but everyone rejects
him. Then, Richard accepts his isolation. Who wants to be friends with people who are so
much less awesome than he is? Finally, Richard admits that all he ever wanted was to feel
accepted.

LITERATURE AND WRITING

Literature is the Swiss Army tool of life. It can be used as a weapon, or as food, or
drink, or even as eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It seems like Black Boy thinks literature
can do pretty much everything as well as the quote-unquote real world. No wonder
Richard loves it. His real world is the worst, but he can ignore all that when hes nose
deep into some serious writing. As he figures out by the end of the book, writing might be
the magic wand that can help him change the world.

RELIGION

Church is like a big party. All your friends are there, the music is awesome, and
everyones wearing their best clothes. Richard is down with all of this, right up until you
ask him to actually, you know, believe anything. In Black Boy, religions most important

aspect is that it allows Richard to mingle. He could care less about all the God and Jesus
stuff. You could say that religion is just as much about being in the in-crowd as it is about
spirituality.

EDUCATION

Life is a classroom, or at least thats what Black Boy wants us to think. Even though
people brand him as an "intellectual," Richard actually has very little formal training. The
lessons he picks up are from the streets, at home, at his jobs, and in church.

DREAMS, HOPES, AND PLANS

Dreams. Hopes. Prayers. Wishes. Richard has tons of these. Hes got them to spare.
Even though there isnt much hope to go around in the world of Black Boy, Richard
manages to hold on to the little bit of a dream that takes him out of the South and into the
North. He clutches his dreams even though everyone tells him hes being daft. Dreams
hold Richards life together when everything else is falling apart, and even when theyre
the thing thats ripping his life apart. Sure, his life might have been easier without such
big dreamsbut it certainly would have been less interesting.
POINT OF VIEW

FIRST PERSON (CENTRAL NARRATOR)

Whats awesome about this is that Wrights technique works on two levels. On one
level, hes brilliantly conveying the sense of being four years old and not being able to
understand what you see. On another level, the adult Wright is giving us the clues we
need to know exactly what Richard is looking at. The whole book works, like with the

perspective of Richard as hes living his life and also Wright as hes narrating his life. Its
super cool.
LEVELS OF LANGUAGE

WRITING STYLE

Wrights writing is cinematic is that his scenes play out in your head, just like a
movie. Even though he doesnt use fancy flowery language, his point gets across loud
and clear. His language seems a little too stiff and sophisticated for the subject material,
like he is throwing in all the big SAT words that he can find. Theres "internecine strife"
in the Communist Party, not just infighting. People dont curse; they hurl "invectives".
Granny and Aunt Addie arent brown-nosing Richard; theyre displaying "urgent
solicitude.
These two-dollar words might seem to take away from the story, making it more
difficult to sympathize with Richard. It makes sense that people would call him an
intellectual or stuck up because the language is too formal for a normal kid, much less
one who grew up starving on the streets of Memphis.

GENRE

Black Boy is a story about Richard Wright, written by Richard Wright. Richard
narrates it, and it follows his life from childhood to adulthood. There, Black Boy meets
the minimum requirements of autobiography.
The thing is, no one thinks that Black Boy is true in that kind of way. Its sort of his
life, but its mostly fiction. So then, why is it Autobiography and not just Literary

Fiction? It is because it feels true. It could have happened. Its sort of what happened so
well enough.
Black Boy is a different kind of comedy, the kind that is about overcoming
constant adversity. Its about getting everything but the kitchen sink thrown at you, but
still coming out the other side as a functioning human being.
This is exactly what happens to Richard. He wants that piece of cheese, if by
cheese you mean "to get out of the South and figure out this racism business." But every
time he tries, something happens. Great Depression takes his job away. Still, Richard
manages to survive, and this book is the proof.

TONE

Black Boy is basically a blues song stretched out to 400-odd pages and without a
catchy tune. You know how these songs go: your lover left you, your money is gone, your
dog ran away, and now youre singing about it for the entire world to hear. In the same
way, Richard unashamedly hangs his dirty laundry out to dry. Yes, he was hungry, yes he
watched people pooping, yes he played in sewage, and yes he was alone.
The blues isnt a complaint: its a way of expressing both the bad and the good, and
bringing other people into your life. Just like Black Boy.
LITERARY DEVICES
THE EPIGRAPH

Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the great entre of a story. They illuminate
important aspects of the story, and they get us headed in the right direction.
They meet with darkness in the daytime. And they grope at noonday as in the
night... Job 5:14
Job basically gets the bummest deal in the whole Hebrew Bible. Hes just sitting
around minding his own business when God allows the Devil to mess with him. And by
mess with him, we mean destroy his house, kill his family, and give him horrible
disfiguring diseases.
Richard is like Job. He suffers, horribly and constantly, for no reason at all, and
meanwhile everyone is telling him that hes evil and its his entire fault.
And heres a more metaphorical way of thinking about it. Notice that the epigraph
talks about people groping around as though theyre blind. You could say that Richard is
blind and groping his way toward the light. At first he thinks that the light is the North,
but he finally figures out that actually what hes after is a better understanding of life
itself.
SYMBOLISM, IMAGERY, ALLEGORY

HUNGER

We dont know if you noticed, but Richard is hungry. Richard does not have enough
to eat. Hes not even in elementary school, and hes actually starving. When his dad
leaves the house, Richards family becomes seriously poor. Before he even knows that his
dad is gone, Richard starts to hallucinate about how hungry he is. Sometimes, Richard is

so weak from hunger that he can barely move. Its so bad that neighbors start offering
him food on the street. But Richard, even as a teeny little boy, is proud. He doesnt want
the food from strangers. He doesnt want other people to know that he is hungry. At the
same time needing to put food in his belly is what makes him work so hard.
As Richard matures, he starts experiencing the metaphorical kind of hunger: he
hungers for "that which is not and can never be," "to be and live," for "insight into my
own life and the lives about me," for "a grasp of the framework of contemporary living,"
and for "a new way to live"

THE NORTH

Valhalla is the Elysian Fields and Spring Break in Key West. Every culture has a
place where everything is awesome, and everyone is eternally happy. In the Jim Crow
South, that place was the North. More than just a geographical location, the North is a
magical place of possibility and opportunity. As soon as you cross the border, everything
about your mundane life will be awesome. Maybe trees will even start singing songs.

THE MYTH

Its hard to separate truth from fiction about the North. Are the buildings really 40
stories high? Can black people really live freely? Do the buildings sway in the breeze,
like tree branches? Even the truth sounds fantastical to the black boys from the South.
Besides being magical, the North also becomes a place of refuge in Richards imagination
after his aunt and brother flees to Chicago.

THE (DISAPPOINTING) REALITY

Not to mention that Richard experiences the same problems that he faced in the
South. After spending so much time getting him there, he ends up poor, threatened, and
bullied. Again, in the end, he asks himself, what was the point of coming here?

SILENCE

There is an awful lot of silence in Black Boy. Since books are basically the opposite
of silencetheyre all about wordsits notable that Black Boy brings up "silent" and
"silence" almost 100 times. If an author does something enough, it probably means
something.

ACCESS DENIED

When Richard starts asking the difficult questions, he realizes that his security
clearance doesnt get him very far. Its like a big conspiracy of disinformation.
When Richard asks his mom about race, she mostly non-answers and hes frustrated
to think that theres a reality "beneath all the words and silences". When his grandpa dies,
he cant go to the funeral and he says: "They told me nothing and I asked no questions".
Even when he asks about "Professor" Matthews, the only answer Richard finds is more
silence: "its something you cant know".
As he grows older, Richard realizes that its not just his family: whenever he asks the
boys he works with about race, "they would either remain silent or turn the subject into a

joke". The whole world seems complicit in a conspiracy to keep him from understanding
anything about his life.

A SECRET LANGUAGE

But theres another kind of silence too which is a telepathic kind. Richard explains:
"That was the way things were between whites and blacks in the South; many of the most
important things were never openly said; they were understated and left to seep through
to one"
Time after time, Richard "talks" to white men through silence. And it makes sense.
Since blacks and whites more or less speak different languages in the Southmaybe
silence is the only way they can communicate.

ILLNESS

Mrs. Wrights inexplicable, constant illness comes to symbolize suffering. Richard

lays it out for us: "My mothers suffering grew into a symbol in my mind, gathering to
itself all the poverty, the ignorance, the helplessness; the painful, baffling, hunger-ridden
days and hours; the restless moving, the futile seeking, the uncertainty, the fear, the dread;
the meaningless pain and the endless suffering".
So, not only does she have to suffer through being sick all the time, she has to bear
the burden of representing Richards suffering, the suffering of black Americans, and the
suffering of all oppressed people everywhere.
INTERPRETATION

WHAT'S UP WITH THE TITLE?

Apparently Wright is an indecisive guy. He went through three different titles
for Black Boy before it was published, even without help from his editor. Maybe hes just
a perfectionist, but its clear that he wanted to find a title that was just right for his
breakout book.
By using the term "black boy," Wright seems to be challenging readers to rethink
its meaning. Black men used to be called boys, since black people were considered to be
like children. The term went along with a whole host of ugly stereotypes, including
stupidity, carelessness, and laziness.
WHAT'S UP WITH THE ENDING?
The final moments of the book come after Richard has been dragged out of the
picket line by a bunch of angry Communists. Shocked, he goes back to his room to ask
himself what hes gotten out of his life. He has no answers.
The text ends with a flash of insight but no certainty, at least for Richard. Hes
alone, he still doesnt understand how to connect with people, he still doesnt understand
racism, and to top it all off he cant even write very well. But he knows hes going to try.
The dramatic irony of this is that, since were holding this book in our hands, we
know that Richard has succeeded. But if we were his editors checking out the manuscript,
wed probably feel a lot more uneasy.