NON-AFRICAN PROSE RICHARD WRIGHT: Black Boy Examine the factors that make Richard a distinct personality.

Answer Details

In Richard Wright's autobiography Black Boy, the narrator Richard grows up in the segregated American South, yet he never becomes an ordinary product of that world. Several factors combine to make him a distinct, exceptional personality.

Fierce independence and rebellion. From childhood Richard refuses to be moulded by the expectations of others. He resists his grandmother's rigid Seventh-Day Adventist religion, questions authority in the home and clashes with employers who expect a black boy to be submissive. Where others bend, Richard asserts his own will.

Hunger, literal and intellectual. Physical hunger dogs his early years, but a deeper hunger, the hunger to know and to read, sets him apart. By using a borrowed library card and a forged note to obtain the books of writers such as H. L. Mencken, he opens a mental world closed to those around him. Reading feeds an imagination that his environment tries to starve.

Curiosity and questioning intellect. Richard constantly asks why, refusing to accept the racial code of the South as natural. This restless, analytical mind makes him misunderstood even by his own family, who fear his boldness will bring danger.

Sensitivity and moral seriousness. He feels keenly the cruelty and injustice around him and cannot pretend, unlike others, that things are acceptable. This sensitivity isolates him but sharpens his conscience.

Courage and endurance. Beaten, starved and threatened, Richard survives without surrendering his individuality, finally migrating North in search of freedom and self-expression.

Taken together, his rebellious independence, his hunger for knowledge, his questioning mind, his sensitivity and his stubborn courage make Richard a distinct personality who rises above the limits his society tries to impose.