Big Boy Leves Home

Waal, Buck said, 'Hes gotta gun!' N we started runnin. N then he shot Buck, n he fell in the swimmin hole. We didn't see im no mo . . . He wuz close on us then. He looked at the white woman n then he started t shoot Bobo. Ah grabbed the gun, n we started fightin. Bobo jumped on his back. He started beatin Bobo. Then Ah hit im wid the gun. Then he started at me n Ah shot im. Then we run
The story’s climax comes with the second sacrifice of Bobo. This time Big Boy makes the mature decision and ascends into adulthood for good. He survives because he looks out for himself and sacrifices his only remaining friend, simply because he cannot expel anymore energy after fighting a dog, a snake, the night, and himself. By hiding, Big Boy knows that at least he has a chance of surviving. Had he come to Bobo’s defense they both would have died. In this passage Big Boy comes to his agonizing decision. “Tha mus be Bobo; tha mus be Bobo theys carryin…They’ll get im here. He oughta git up n run. He clamped his teeth and ran his hand across his forehead, bringing it away wet. He tried to swallow, but could not; his throat was dry (…) There were women singing now. Their voices made the song round and full.” Big Boy continues to hide while his friend is killed not because he wants to, but because he feels he has no choice. That women join in the singing haunts Big Boy. A woman is what initially caused all the trouble Big Boy is in; he was too shy, too immature to be seen naked by a woman, white or not. Now women are soulfully singing around the death of his friend, causing Big Boy to face the harsh reality that white people are murderous, no matter their sex. Big Boy cannot retain his innocence because after the death brutal murder of Bobo, he “had no feelings now, no fears. He was numb, empty, as though all blood had been drawn from him.”

Richard Wright’s “Big Boy Leaves Home” confronts a young black person’s forced maturation at the hands of unsympathetic