Black Boy

Black Boy How do our choices affect our independence? The decisions we make and our actions we take have a direct impact upon the freedom we enjoy in our lives, in Richard wright’s autobiographical novel, Black Boy, this is clearly evident. The author had to struggle against violence, racism, and hunger in order to ultimately gain his independence. These obstacles were present throughout the author’s life and influenced his writing. Early in his life he suffered different forms of abuse. Richard experienced a lot of physical abuse in his life and much of it came from his own family members. The very people that he is supposed to love and trust were the most violent toward him. For example after he accidentally set the house on fire, his mother’s form of punishment was severe. “I was lashed so hard and so long that I lost consciousness…” (Wright 7). This was typical for the level of violence he had to endure in the home. Later on in life, Richard learned how to stick up for himself. His mother forced him to stand up to some neighborhood bullies who repeatedly stole his grocery money and beat him. He had to learn the unfortunate fact that violence is sometimes necessary to survive in this corrupt society. Often times the root of the violence Richard experienced was racially induced. Throughout Wright’s novel, many different forms of racism impacted his independence. In fact, Richards awakening to racial justice occurred when he was unknowingly selling discrimination newspapers for the Ku Klux Klan. “… I turned the pages and read articles so brutally anti-negro…” (Wright 132). Ashamed and dismayed, Richard immediately threw out the newspapers and never spoke about the incident again. Another example where he was undervalued and belittled occurs when his employer questions his intellect and ability for self-expression. “You’ll never be a writer, she said, who on earth ever put such ideas in your… head?” (Wright 147). Ironically this racial hatred, in turn