NON-AFRICAN PROSE RICHARD WRIGHT: Black Boy Discuss the relationship between Richard and the members of his family.

Answer Details

Richard Wright's Black Boy is an autobiographical account of the author's harsh childhood and youth in the American South. The relationship between Richard and members of his family is generally strained, marked by hunger, misunderstanding, violence and religious conflict, and this troubled family life shapes his rebellious, independent character.

Richard and his father

• His father, Nathaniel, is distant and later abandons the family, leaving them in poverty and hunger. Richard grows to despise him, seeing him as irresponsible.
• Years later Richard finds his father a broken sharecropper and feels a mixture of pity and estrangement, recognising how far apart their lives have grown.

Richard and his mother

• His mother, Ella, is the figure he loves most, yet her chronic illness and paralysis fill him with helpless grief. Her suffering comes to symbolise for him the suffering of all Black people.
• Her hardships force Richard into early responsibility and deepen his sense of life's cruelty.

Richard and his grandmother and relatives

• His fiercely religious grandmother, Granny, clashes constantly with Richard, who rejects her rigid faith. Their conflict over religion causes bitter tension in the home.
• Uncle Tom tries to discipline him harshly, and Richard defies him, showing his refusal to submit to authority he considers unjust.
• Aunt Addie, his teacher and relative, beats him and treats him cruelly, deepening his alienation from the family.

The nature of the relationship

• Hunger, poverty and violence dominate the household, and Richard is often beaten and misunderstood.
• His hunger for books, knowledge and independence sets him against a family that values obedience and religion, so he becomes increasingly isolated within his own home.

Conclusion. Richard's relationship with his family is largely one of conflict and alienation, softened only by his tender, sorrowful love for his suffering mother. The coldness, violence and religious rigidity he meets at home drive him toward self-reliance and eventual flight to the North, making his family experience central to his development.