NON-AFRICAN PROSE RICHARD WRIGHT: Black Boy With reference to the text ,discuss the character of Richard as a self-determined person.

Answer Details

Richard Wright's Black Boy is above all the record of a self-determined spirit. From earliest childhood the narrator Richard refuses to be moulded by the hunger, violence, family tyranny and racial oppression that surround him, and it is his stubborn will to define himself that gives the autobiography its power.

Early rebellion against authority. As a small boy Richard questions and resists every attempt to control him. He defies his grandmother's rigid Seventh-Day Adventist household, refuses to accept religion merely because it is imposed, and rejects the beatings and prayers meant to break his independence. His insistence on thinking for himself sets him apart from all around him.

Hunger for knowledge. Denied books and formal encouragement, Richard determines to educate himself. His imagination is first lit by the story of Bluebeard, and he pursues reading against every obstacle. The famous episode in Memphis, where he forges a note and borrows a white man's library card to obtain the works of H. L. Mencken, shows him defying the whole system that forbids a black boy to read. Through literature he consciously builds his own mind.

Refusal to accept his "place". The white South demands that a black boy be servile, grinning and dishonest about his feelings. Richard cannot perform this role. He loses jobs, angers employers and endangers himself because he will not play the humble "nigger" expected of him. His inability to submit is not mere clumsiness but a deep refusal to surrender his selfhood.

Independence within his own community. His self-determination isolates him even from other black people, who fear that his pride will bring trouble. Yet he refuses to dampen his spirit to win their approval, choosing solitude over conformity.

The decision to leave. The supreme act of self-determination is his choice to escape the South. Saving his money and steeling his will, Richard migrates North to Chicago in search of the freedom to become a writer and a full human being. This flight is the logical outcome of a life spent asserting the right to shape his own destiny.

The vocation of writing. Underlying everything is his resolve to become a writer, to give voice to his own truth despite a world that offers him no encouragement. Writing becomes the ultimate expression of a self that insists on existing on its own terms.

Conclusion. Richard is self-determined in his rebellion against family and religion, his self-education, his refusal to accept racial subservience, his acceptance of loneliness, and his final escape to the North. His unbreakable will to define himself, against poverty and prejudice alike, is the central force of Black Boy.