NON-AFRICAN PROSE RICHARD WRIGHT: Black Boy Discuss the contributions of Mr. Crane and Mr Olin to the development of the plot.

Contributions of Mr. Crane and Mr. Olin to the Development of the Plot in Black Boy

In this question, plot means the sequence and development of events in the novel. Mr. Crane and Mr. Olin are minor white characters, but their encounters with Richard deepen the conflict of racism and help to move him towards the decision to leave the South.

Mr. Crane is the northern, or Yankee, owner of an optical company. Unlike many Southern whites, he appears willing to give Richard an opportunity to learn lens-grinding, a skilled and permanent trade. His offer raises Richard's hope that he can acquire useful training, earn money and improve his life. However, Crane's employees, Pease and Reynolds, bitterly resent the idea of a black boy being trained in a trade they regard as reserved for whites. They intimidate Richard and eventually contrive an accusation against him. Richard is unable to defend himself freely against two hostile white men, and he has to leave the job.

This incident advances the plot because it destroys one more of Richard's hopes of achieving security and progress in the South. It also reveals that Mr. Crane's good intentions cannot overcome the racism of the white community. Richard feels, in effect, excluded from normal human opportunity. The episode therefore strengthens his conviction that a gifted black youth cannot develop freely under Southern racial conditions.

Mr. Olin is another white supervisor in an optical establishment. He contributes to the plot by deliberately creating hostility between Richard and Harrison, another black boy. Olin tells each boy lies intended to make him believe that the other is dangerous and wishes to attack him. His purpose is not to settle any genuine dispute; he wants the amusement of seeing two black boys fight one another.

Olin's action produces the humiliating boxing encounter between Richard and Harrison. The excited reactions of the white spectators, who urge the boys to hurt and make each other bleed, expose their cruelty and their treatment of blacks as objects of entertainment rather than as human beings. Although Richard and Harrison later recognize that they have been manipulated, the experience leaves Richard more distrustful of the white world around him.

Thus, Crane's episode shows the failure of a seemingly promising opportunity because of racial prejudice, while Olin's episode reveals the deliberate sadism with which some whites set blacks against one another. Together, the two incidents intensify Richard's disillusionment with the South and propel the narrative towards his search for dignity, freedom and a better life elsewhere.