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Black Boy (1945) is a memoir by American author Richard Wright, detailing his upbringing. Wright describes his youth in the South: Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee, and his eventual move to Chicago, where he establishes his writing career and becomes involved with the Communist Party. Black Boy gained high acclaim in the United States ...
- Richard Nathaniel Wright
- 1945
Black Boy Full Book Summary. Required to remain quiet while his grandmother lies ill in bed, four-year-old Richard Wright becomes bored and begins playing with fire near the curtains, leading to his accidentally burning down the family home in Natchez, Mississippi. In fear, Richard hides under the burning house.
- Richard Nathaniel Wright
- 1945
Black Boy is a memoir by Richard Wright that was first published in 1945. It is a coming-of-age story that follows Wright’s childhood and adolescence in the Jim Crow era American South. The memoir explores the author’s experiences with racism and violence, as well as his eventual move to Chicago in search of a better life.
In Black Boy, especially, Richard’s personal education in the classics of world literature helps spur his journey to the North. (See, among other publications, the scholarly work Ten is the Age of Darkness: The Black Bildungsroman , by Geta LeSeur.)
Black Boy is a classic of American autobiography, a subtly crafted narrative of Richard Wright's journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. An enduring story of one young man's coming of age during a particular time and place, Black Boy remains a seminal text in our history about what it means to be a man, black, and Southern in America.
- (54.4K)
- Paperback
Black Boy, however, explores racism not only as an odious belief held by odious people but also as an insidious problem knit into the very fabric of society as a whole. Wright portrays characters such as Olin and Pease as evil people, but also—and more chillingly—as bit players in a vast drama of hatred, fear, and oppression.
Black Boy Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections: This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion on Black Boy by Richard Wright. Richard Wright begins the account of his life at age four, when, bored and ...
