Keep following the central motifs of the text: hunger, guilt, fear, desire, fire.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wright's Black Boy, Day II
As you continue reading Black Boy, use the space below to comment on any aspect of the narrative. You might want to think about how Richard's attitude toward race evolves and how his social consciousness starts to shift. You might also trace out further the relationship between language and power that we discussed on Thursday. How does the autobiography continue to point to the importance of literacy?
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(Aaron Nugent)
ReplyDeleteI think the opening few pages of chapter 3 are interesting for Wright's social consciousness. He and his young friends are standing around talking, and Wright includes an anthropologist-like description to each line of dialogue.
The lines start out commenting on the boys' mood or tone, then begin to shift toward race relationships. Wright includes comments like- "the subject of white folks is associationally swept into the orbit of talk," or "bitter pride," or "sober statement of an old problem" when boys bring up race riots or say that "white folks sure are scared of [them]" (79).
I think this in an interesting device for Wright to use as he looks back and analyzes a conversation, or a memory of a conversation, from his past. Through this we can chart their development and especially see the fears, suspicions and insecurities that are imbedded in their language.
What really struck me isn't in one piece of what we read, but it is spread throughout. In the first reading he said that he wasn't going to let anyone beat him again. Throughout the novel he fights back against what he feels are unjust punishments. It is interesting that the most heartbreaking moments he has to stand up for himself for have to do with religion. Having been to a Baptist Revival and having been to A Seventh Day Adventist revival I totally agree with the author that the feeling of dread and of being in a trap are extremely prevalent.
ReplyDeleteAs for this following him not wanting to be beat again it seems he takes the attitude that having this religion forced upon him will not be a physical beating but a moral one.
Later in the novel he refuses to read the principals speech on principle even though he grudgingly admits that his own isn't as good. But in this arena as well he walks out with his head held high and unbeaten. This sets the stage for the rest of his life since he refuses to act in the way that others expect and want him to act. He takes his own path and sometimes suffers greatly for it.
Wright's continued yearning for literacy is not hard to understand. At every turn, whether with family or at school, his questions are always left unanswered. At his most anxious and disturbing moments, when he seems genuinely perplexed as to what he did wrong or why the individual has such rage toward him, he is more often met with a slap - never an answer. He is desparate to have answers but they are never forthcoming from the individuals in his life that should be educating him. At the point when his grandpa is dying, he doesn't even try to ask for he "knew that I would not get an answer." He later states that "information was always denied me", so it is understandable that he had a constant need to know more than was offered to him and to find it anywhere that he could.
ReplyDeleteIn looking at how language is associated with power, first I think of Richard’s need to acquire money to purchase books to attend a public school. As a college student, I can relate, but it is something taken for granted when sending children to public school now. He mentions this as every school year begins in each chapter emphasizing the importance of not just education but books specifically. Literature was not a focus of education, in fact the idea that a black man could become a writer was absurd to nearly everyone he encounters. The unfairness of this begins to bring issues of race, money, and education to a more personal level for Wright as he discusses the expense and effort put into ensuring he never had these feelings of inspiration and says, “I was building up in me a dream which the entire educational system of the South had been rigged up to stifle.”
ReplyDeleteThe relationship is presented in the paradox of his first potential to earn money by selling the newspapers from Chicago, which offer exciting stories in the magazine insert, and his failure to read the paper itself, which turns out to be full of racist propaganda. Clearly he had no interest in even looking at the newspaper, as he expected it to be nonfiction, and he knew his cravings would only be satisfied by the “outlandish exploits of outlandish men in faraway, outlandish cities.” Ironically, his grandmother does not mind his selling the papers, but when she finds out his story is being published in the local paper she rejects is as “the devil’s work,” not understanding why anyone would want to read a made-up story just to read a story.
Similarly, the neighbor who reads his first story and his friends at school do not understand what leads him to write. These individuals are not empowered by language, maybe because they have not been moved by it. Fiction seems a foreign, dangerous concept, and, while his urge is to belong, Richard becomes more of an outsider. Despite such discouragement, he finds hope in dreaming of a future writing novels in the North, an adventurous notion he attributes to his favorite pulp fiction.
It was really obvious in this chapter that Wright was becoming more and more critical of religion throughout this section and particularly in chapter IV. He starts out the chapter describing apects of church that he remembered from the days he went with his granny. Ironically, many of the themes that he lists have in common fire and burning.
ReplyDeleteLater in the chapter we see that Wright seems to be implying that religion takes away from a person more than it gives. This is evident when he describes the other children at the school. He calls them, "will-less" with "flat speech" and "devoid personalities." Wright's overall impression of religion is that it is conforming in a way that robs a person of their identity, or if it doesn't rob them, it completely destroys them.
This is evident with Aunt Addie. She is a very religious person; however, her Wright portrays her as hateful, resentful, and spiteful. As readers we too grow angry with this woman who wrongfully accuses Wright then wrongfully punishes him as well.
His mockery of religion reaches its peak when he says, "God blessed our home with a love that binds." This statement is clearly ironical, as his family doesn't share much of a loving bond at all.
I don't quite know how I feel about the narrator so far. I don’t feel that the things Wright did early on (house burning, cat killing) were justifiable by his age or any other circumstances. He seems to want to be a good kid, he just wants to be himself which is hard enough for anyone growing up especially surrounded by hardship and poverty, not to mention strict religious upbringing. I envy his ability to stick to his feelings despite the constant abuse. He doesn’t rat out the kid with the peanuts to his Aunt/Teacher, and he doesn’t let his Granny scare him into religion. He is loudmouthed and has a hard time simply letting the adults have their way (which is a proven method for getting them off your back). I take Richard to be thick skulled because many times he wont just give up and that makes things harder for him. But at the same time, a lot of the adult in his life are more ignorant than him.
ReplyDeleteObviously we’re dealing with a complex character but I’m curious if our author didn’t fill in some blanks with his autobiography to make himself seem more interesting.
The scene where Granny falls down the steps trying to strike the narrator is interesting for two reasons. First, the narrator is too frightened to decide whether his actions were right. His fear is so overwhelming that he considers the idea that letting the woman slap him in the face may have been the correct course of action. Thus, his bizarre reaction is, in effect, him debating the virtues of obeying natural law, his reflexive dodge, versus social law, letting his grandmother strike him without provocation.
ReplyDeleteSecond, the cause for the unusual reaction of the narrator is revealed. Rather than try to nurture the protagonist, Aunt Addie verbally assaults him and treats him as though he deliberately attacked Granny.
The narrator is in constant fear of someone, whether it is his grade-school teacher, the director of the orphanage, or his own family. This perpetual fear, mixed with a healthy dose of vague guilt, are what cause him to immediately respond by trying to justify the action. It is this reaction that is so telling about the protagonist. From the one event, in which he bore no responsibility, he experienced guilt, shame, fear, and even anger.
What stood out for me about the narrator is his overwhelming sense of isolation and of being cut-off from the world. He does not fit in at church; he is constantly questioning the practices and is never moved by the services. On 112, he says, "Perhaps if I had caught my first sense of life from the church I would have been moved to complete acceptance." Later on he talks about attending a Protestant on page 151 he says, "I had been kept out of their world too long" to ever become a part. He can't find a place in religion or even in his own home.
ReplyDeleteFrom one page to the next, he is being threated with a slap, a switch, or worse. His family constantly shuts him down and pushes him away. They made him develop a tic! Their reaction to him being published is so sad. As a writer too, I would have been crushed. No matter what he does he is called a fool. It is no wonder he turned to fiction and stories as a release and escape from the world around him. His love of language and reading continues the line of African-Americans turning to literacy for power nad betterment.
What I find most interesting in _Black Boy_ so far is the relationship of violence to language. I expected the narrator to "grow out of" using fists instead of words, but violence remains central to Wright's narrative. For example, at the end of Chapter 6 Wright tries to explain to Uncle Tom that he meant no offense by his response that "if it's [his watch] a little slow or fast, it's not far wrong" (137). Wright's repeated questions about the insult of his reply are met with cries of "impudent black rascal" and the boy is repeatedly told that he "need[s] a lesson" (136, 138). This breakdown in communication eventually leads to Wright facing Uncle Tom down with razorblades.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why Wright chooses to emphasize this. What does this say about the African-American condition in the United States? I find these passages--and there are plenty of them--to be extremely concerning. They seem to play into the "black beast" stereotype; that is, Wright seems to be confirming that there is something intrinsically violent and dangerous about black men. At first I thought that linking violence with language was a commentary on education, but the African-American boys who have attended grade school consistently exist in the same culture of violence, forcing Wright to run a gauntlet of abuse at each new school. Perhaps Wright will clarify this later in the autobiography, but right now I see these scenes as perpetuating an oppressive stereotype rather than revealing the tragic situation of a poor, young, black American boy.
I see such a desperate undertone of abuse so far. Not so much like the abuse he suffered from his father now, but the abuse of power within the church. He is being forced by his family to find God, and forced by the church to be baptized or have his family suffer the embarrassment. I try to see this through his eyes, and wonder how could anyone expect this child to find God? Hunger, depravity, or anger, yes. But God is hope and his hopes are always smothered. He thinks he’s found a way through the system to earn money and ends up getting used ( I thought it was interesting that it was a newspaper, again it is words, the written word that holds such a tremendous power.) This boy is all alone, even when he’s in a crowd of his peers, or at in his highly religious home. It is sad. I loved on p. 126 “ I vowed that someday I’d end this hunger of mine, this apartness, this eternal difference...” His hunger, for knowledge and for belonging. This boy who has been abandoned and fooled and beaten and starved and not loved as most of us know the term.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found interesting is the way Wright descrives the religious hypocrisy of his family members, especially Aunt Addie. She is the one who suggests that Richard go to the religious school where she teaches. Once he starts going there, she starts giving him absurd and very harsh punishments. The way Richard fights this injustice is different from the other fights he has had; here, he feels his superiority to his aunt. He finds her nervousness and self-consciousness that comes from her first time teaching and having a relative in her class. He finds the anxiety and self-consciousness, which he has been feeling in his life, in his aunt and understand that she is not a person whom he does not have to be afraid of or cannot defeat. I think this means that now he has better understanding of his own feelings. Also, as he grows up and become skeptic toward the religion, he overcomes the female dominance that was punishing and frightning him.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete(made a boo boo, reposting :D)
ReplyDeleteAn aspect of this work that has really captivated me up to this point is the nature of how one's actions can affect another in a way for better and/or worse that can cause them to treat another the same way and then they do the same to another and so on and so forth. The abuses he endures from others causes him to also be abusive to others in turn.
It is a vicious cycle causing negative chain reactions that influence the collective consciousness of man in ways not immediately detailed in the story. Nonetheless, the most important point is that how you treat others will affect another, who then affects another, who then affects another ad infinitum, until eventually how you have treat others is reflected back in how others treat you.