The black boy in this first chapter is about this kid who from such as early age starts having a lot of questions and curiosity about thing, people, justice.. Where he see the difference between hight class and low class not even knowing what it is, but he does see the threat on the different people, he does wander why some people get more then others. where he learns the power of words, how to defeat other people by using the power of language. sins he start curiosity about thing he connecting to the different races and the threat that people give too each other when your are a different race
Richard Wright, a merely curious 6 year old is the main character in Black Boy. We see in the beginning pages the peaking curiosity of Richard and the boredom he has. In a result of Richards’s boredom, he does things such as burning curtains and drinking alcohol and learning new phrases. All of these things Richard does out of boredom seem to result in him getting into trouble. There is a recurring pattern of Richard’s parents not being there and Richard seeing things that peak his interest, which makes him do bad things because he is neglected by his family and seeks for a way to entertain himself. He was never taught the difference between right and wrong and he likes to test the limits. Richard is a very abandoned kid and is forced to learn things on his own and he learns by making the mistakes he does. This is a occurring pattern shown throughout chapter 1 of Black Boy from him burning the draperies in the beginning to him saying phrases he learned at school and getting in trouble for it.
Chapter one of Black Boy is an incredibly important section of the book. It thoroughly builds the personality and identity of Richard through his deep thoughts and experiences as a child. The episodes of his life described in this chapter each have a significant meaning that contribute to a part of Richard’s character as he faces the obstacles in his adolescence. In this chapter he learns a lot about himself and the world around him, for example when he discovers the race relations in the society around him and when he encounters disappointment for the first time. Throughout this first chapter I have seen a pattern of fear. In the many situations he encounters, Richard felt fear, especially in the presence of an authority figure such as his mother or grandparents. Another pattern would be of violence. He experiences violence very often, in his family and on the streets. The symbol of the color “white” also shows up very often in his narrative. It is usually associated fear and violence.
In Chapter One of Black Boy, Richard Wright tells his tales of the early years of his life. He learns the importance of words and the importance of freedom through his different tales of his curiosity and innocence. When he tells his mother he wants to learn, during the school day, he learns some very vulgar words. After writing these words everywhere in town and his mother finds out and beats him; he learns that words can be very powerful because he did not know those words were vulgar during that time. Wright also learns the importance of freedom, especially when his mother teaches him to fight. He talks about how he had won the rights to the streets, and that gives him the freedom to do what he wants. He also learns that freedom is an important part of life and that his freedom is connected to two things: his parents and white people. He sees both of these; his refusal to listen to his parents is one way that he sees freedom and as he visits his father at the plantation, Wright sees that his father has no freedom because of the white people who own him. This is another way that Wright sees freedom and in particular, no freedom. Throughout Chapter One of Black Boy, we see Richard Wright’s stories as a passage into his mind about his ability to learn the importance of words and the importance of freedom.
A six-year-old boy, by the name of Richard Wright is the main character in the autobiography Black Boy. Throughout the first chapter, we discover that Wright is very bored and curious and seems to want some sort of attention. The things that he does to get attention are the things that get him in trouble. The first thing that Wright does to get him in trouble is burning the white curtains. He sees this action as an act of enjoyment and not as something wrong. The second thing that gets him in trouble is hanging the family kitten. His father tells him to hang the cat when he is sleeping because the kitten keeps meowing but does not mean to literally kill it. In this incident, Wright knows that he was not supposed to do it, but wanted to get his fathers attention, showing that he is capable of this action and taking words literally. From these actions, you can see that there is a pattern of Richard Wright getting into trouble and wanting attention.
Richard Wright introduces us to his life by showing us the first major episode that was the foundation of all of his many different experiences. In episode one, we see that Richard is very bored and restricted since he can’t make a lot of noise or do anything that would entertain him because his grandma was sick and trying to rest. He then comes up with the idea of burning straws from a broom to see what would happen to them, but things go awry when he tries to burn the curtain to see if the colors would change, and instead ends up setting the house on fire. He goes and hides under the burning house because he is aware of the consequences he will receive, and he is later beaten so badly by his mother that he becomes ill. This episode shows us that Richard has a curiosity and boredom that can only be fulfilled when he experiments with the things around him. This first episode also shows us that there is a persistent violence inflicted on him by his mother. Although the beatings he receives are supposed to be a restriction to his wonders and thoughts, he hungers for curiosity and his drive to learn and decode his surroundings don’t hold him back from dreaming despite the fact that he is scolded for it. By gaining knowledge and still wanting to learn more, he finds stability and control in his life and he also has a better sense of what the truth is because he’s struggled with so much confusion in his past; and we see this in another scene where Richard wants to begin to read and get a better understanding of what is going in. I think that by showing us his passion for learning, we see that he breaks stereotypes because he shows us that blacks have just as much of a right to learn and be educated as the whites do and that no matter what difficulty wants to try and stop that, he won’t let it happen.
• Richard shows at a young age how drawn he is to making himself smarter and more intellectual. No matter what the case, he likes experimenting: the case of his killing the kitten, seeing the world and feeling it differently through being drunk and his thirst to inspect people’s anatomy. When Richard killed the kitten, he wanted to show how he was able to manipulate his father’s words and actually use them against him. His father probably had no concern that a young Richard Wright would actually kill a kitten, but Richard could not be held responsible because he simply did as his father had told him to do. He showed that he was able to outsmart his own ancestor, his older flesh and blood. Wright was so intrigued when he took his first sip of alcohol. Because of alcohol’s mind-altering effects, people view and experience reality through a whole new pair of eyes; things become more loosey-goosey and one feels more free and in his own element when drunk. This shows how Wright craved different perspectives and creativity even as a young child. Though some people take his joy of seeing people’s bare butts from behind, it can also be viewed as a want to become more familiar with the human anatomy. It can be easily argued that he only did this so that he could fit in with the “cool crowd” or because “young boys are always so disgusting,” but some can argue that he aspires to be well-acquainted with each and every single part of knowledge; he just wanted to learn about the body and what it is able to do. Wright presents about eleven different examples in the first chapter alone of his yearn for knowledge and curiosity.
In chapter one of Black Boy, author Richard Wright primarily discusses the patterns of himself as a young boy discovering the unknown until his questions are answered by using knowledge as his personal motive to gain power. At age four, Wright describes himself as, “wondering just how the long fluffy white curtains would look like” (Wright 4) if he set fire to them. Through this moment of curiosity, Wright is able to find a solution for his question and eventually burns down not only the curtains, but the entire house as well. As a young child, his need for searching for information and then coming to a conclusion, eventually becomes a pattern throughout his autobiography. Wright demonstrates his thirst for power through knowledge when his father tells him to keep the cat quiet by killing it in a figurative way. Wright “resented his shouting and it irked him that he could never make him feel his resentment” (Wright 11) and through his action of literally killing the cat, Wright is able to take control of the situation by taking words as an answer for revenge towards his father. By obtaining knowledge, Wright does not only view this information as power but as stability and consistency in situations where he cannot find any consistency. These episodes in his early childhood help determine who Wright eventually becomes as a person as he develops throughout the novel.
Throughout Richard Wright's Black Boy readers are introduced to the recurring themes of hunger, the power words hold, and the reality of violence corresponding with dominance in this young black boy's early stages of life. The author specifically chose to highlight these themes throughout various episodes, creating a web of connections, to genuinely show readers what it was like to live his life with his struggles. One episode in which Wright connected a couple of these core themes was when his childhood-self realized words would not always be there to protect him in every situation like when his mother forced him to face the bullies at the end of the street. Wright prospered at the end of that battle and even taunted the boys knowing he had, "won the right to the streets of Memphis," expressing that dominance was key in the places he grew up. All in all, Wright not only recalled the time where he began to understand the power of words (and their limitations) but also the importance of maintaining physical power, thus knotting the themes together to emphasize how significant one's words and actions can be when used for the proper battles.
In the first chapter of Black Boy, Richard Wright displays a thirst for knowledge and intellect. In every other episode Richard discovers the power of words. For instance, when Richard literally kills the kitten his father told him to as a figure of speech, he achieves a triumph over his father. His constant curiosity leads him to learning experiences that attribute to the intellectual person he becomes. Richard’s experience at the Saloon was out of pure curiosity and he says vulgar words that he doesn’t recognize as indecent, contributing to his interest of words. After a school day he learns new vulgar words that he decides to write them all over all town, recognizing how influential words can be after the beating his mother gave him. It’s these few experiences in the first chapter that shape Richard Wright and his passion for learning.
In chapter one of Black Boy, Richard is a curious child who finds himself left to his own devices a lot, and is constantly wondering about everything he sees. Throughout the chapter he constantly badgers his mother with questions and gains knowledge from the people around him. Towards the end it Richards starts to learn more about the society he is living in and how there are certain unwritten rules that he must follow. Violence also plays an important role in these episodes whether it is from his mother or street kids. Through the violence he learns about power, and how words have power that violence does not.
In chapter one of Black Boy the main character, Richard Wright, is a young boy who is full of curious thoughts about the world around him. The very first episode the he shares with us is the episode where he burns down his house. This was not an intentional act of destruction, Wright just wanted to see what the curtains would look like in flames. This first episode shows his sense of curiosity. One of the other important episodes shows him killing a cat. His father told him to "kill the cat", but he did not mean it intentionally. Wright never really liked his father that much, so he gladly took his dads words and killed the cat. Wright is still unaware that black and white people are different at this point in his life, it is not until later that he learns about the differences that society has enforced.
The actions displayed through the young Richard Wright and expressed throughout chapter one of his autobiography are reoccurring instances of unpredictability due to a sense of adolescent curiosity. This behavior obstructs Richard’s ability to fully be able to accommodate himself to one specific environment. In the first episode, Richard is forced to silence himself for the benefit of those around him including his sickly grandmother, his abusive mother and hateful father. Richard unexpectedly burns down his house in the innocent attempt at entertainment; little did the six year old know that he would destroy their entire living space. This act later lead to a thorough beating from his mother with a branch from a tree, where he was almost killed. In episode two, readers are introduced to the shocking story of his revolution over his father, and the moment when Richard finally gains mental power over his father. He out smarts his odious father by lynching the cat he was told to get rid of. The acquisition of the power to interpret words and directions in a way that they can be twisted and turned around to the liking of any specific individual is a power that Richard has just discovered and it gives him an incomprehensible edge over his father’s negligence. In many instances, Richard is forced to stand up for himself and over come his fears or mistakes at a young age, exemplifying the harsh and irregular conditions in which he was forced to abide by. This lifestyle may not have been uncommon to people of color living in the 1900’s, but to white people and individuals of the generations that followed, this type of behavior exemplified by both adults and children is deemed as immoral. His extreme mental fear of the gang members is expressed through us through the episode in Wright’s life when his mother forces him to educate himself in the physical act of violence; he is taught that the only method of gaining the respect of the individuals around him is if he physically abuses them, which is exactly what he does. His mind is now open to both verbal and physical weapons to gain the power of those around him. Richard not only over comes fear; he overcomes mental illnesses as well. Richard became an alcoholic when he was about six years old; the unpredictable behavior of a child of such a young age is not to be expected in modern day perceptions. In many ways, the struggles and punishments that Wright was exposed to all individually lead to his overall perception of his engaging curiosity in racism. Similarly, the unpredictability of his actions and exposures may present an unsafe pathway into the future of a society full of racist beliefs.
Robert White’s intelligence and curiosity are highlighted in the first chapter to foreshadow that as he grows, his questions about life will lead him to a deeper understanding of life than his peers. When observing the white family his mother cooks for, starving Wright understands that there is a distinction between the lives of whites and blacks but does not understand the causes of this division. With stories of “the white man” beating “the black boy”, Robert begins to fear whites, realizing that they must have authority. However, he is contradicted when the white police officer he encounters questioned the boy in “a quiet, confidential tone, and…he was not ‘white’ anymore” (Wright, 32). Since no one, white or black, will talk to the boy about the issue of race, Wright knows little about issue but does see the complexity of the issue. This proves to be a dangerous pair with Robert’s impulsive actions, such as burning his house out of curiosity, because as he desires to learn more about race it will cause fear within whites, and ultimately result in harm.
Wright’s curiosity is the base of all episodes occurring throughout chapter one. Asking questions and experimenting was his way of attaining information, because this gave him a sense of power over his oppressors. We see this when his father figuratively told him to kill the noisy kitten, but Richard takes this figure of speech seriously as a way to outsmart his father’s words. This pattern of curiosity throughout his life was his way of obtaining new language, education, and understanding social differences throughout the world. His constant wonder about the relationship between white and black Americans rose after he started his education and began reading newspapers. The article about the white man beating the black man revealed the true reality that his innocence was hiding from him, so when he discovered this interaction between the whites and blacks, he became curious about why racial comparison and marginalization was prevalent in the world. Wrights questioning about the world gives him a deeper understanding of his own intellectual emotions, which we see forming rapidly, especially in such a young period of his life. This also foreshadows his self-discovery and is the start of his racial activism to his audience.
In Richard Wright’s autobiography, Black Boy, he is introduced to the reader as a very curious four-year old boy who has a lot of unanswered questions about life. He tries to answer these questions and settle his curiosity throughout various episodes in the text. His sense of wonder and desire to discover new things ends up getting him in trouble many times, resulting in a burned down home, a dead kitten, and being drunk by age six. At a young age he learns the power of words and language and uses that knowledge to his benefit. Richard is a young black boy growing up in a society where black people aren’t even seen has human. His role in society is extremely insignificant compared to the wealthy whites in his community. This discrepancy is very apparent to him, even at such a young age. He knows that he is less than the whites, but he does not understand why. He knows he is starving but does not understand what hunger is. Richard is dissatisfied and is in search of fulfillment to his curiosities.
In Chapter one of Black Boy, the readers are introduced to Richard Wright’s rough childhood that are full of violent, distressing, and insightful memories. Richard, at a very young age holds knowledge in which he portrays deep and penetrating views of life throughout the different episodes in the story. In the novel, Richard mentions fear consistently through the inflictions of being abused by his mother and thus his rough family life. Under the tough circumstances at his house, and his abusive mother, Richard is forced to grow up as a strong boy. For instance, at one episode, Richard outsmarts his hateful, temperamental father and decides to willingly teach his father a lesson by taking his words literally and killing the cat. This action portrays his sense of mental power over his father. He continues to show this character when Richard’s mother forces him to face the boys who beat him on the way from the grocery store. There he overcomes his fear, is compelled to stand up for himself and thus beats them back. Through this violence, Richard gains a sense of power of the people around him. Not only does he gain the power of people, but he also happens to discover the power of words. And at one point when his mother forces him to educate himself, Wright describes his vigorous curiosity as his mind opens up to questions on the distinction between the “white" people and “black” people—“Though I had long known that there were people called “white” people, it had never meant anything to me emotionally (Wright 23).”
Southern Night titles part one of Richard Wright’s autobiography, which depicts his yearning for adventure. In the first episode of part one, Richard as a four year old, craves freedom to talk and play in a room that restricts these actions. This desire symbolizes Wright’s thirst for freedom while being surrounded by white walls, white curtains, and white cloth while being in the same room as his “white” grandma who suffers illness. Wright throughout the episodes in part one of his autobiography embellishes the word “white” to represent his growth and experience of social activism during the civil rights movement. The color white is depicted in in episode two when Richard is traveling on the Kate Adams boat. A boat signifies a journey being taken starting from departure and ending at the arrival of destination. “I went to bed hoping that the next morning would be the day of departure” (page 9). A trip on a boat can be rooted within adventure. During a boat ride, one is trapped and since the boat that Wright is taking to Memphis is white, we can infer that “white” and the issue of race constantly surrounds him. Richard Wright’s rooted sense of adventure is proven throughout the episodes of Southern Night but is connected to his development of awareness of the issue of race and his growth of social activism.
From the first few pages of Richard Wright’s Black Boy to the end of chapter 1, the reader is provided with stories which exemplify his feeling of being a prisoner in his own home. Richard fills with fear constantly because of his violent parents and the beatings they usually give him. His mother reacts aggressively when Richard burned his house and after he was beaten out of his senses, he felt “chastened whenever [he] remembered that his mother had come close to killing [him] (Wright. 7.)” Throughout chapter 1, Richard shares stories with the reader that portray not only his fear, but also his curiosity. Richard wants to be let out of his cage and discover new things, but he is constantly restricted. As chapter 1 progresses, Richard experiences, learns, and discovers things that he did not know before.
In the first chapter of Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Richard introduces himself as a child of color who does not yet understand the world around him, but is extremely curious about it. In fact, the very first scene is about Richards curiosity, and how it gets him in trouble. Not only does Richard literally feed the flames of the fire, he also proves to later feed the flames of people around him through his questions about the world and life which his family members get angry when prodded by. Just as everything in his life, Richard loses control of the flame and it bursts. In this text there is a constant presence of fear and violence that is already beginning to be engrained in him. The idea that when put in a position of an oppressor, the oppressed adopt the same violent traits as the original oppressor. In Richards case, this is true. His parents are highly abusive towards him, and he is almost killed multiple times by them. Along with the constant presence of violence, Richard begins to get a taste of how powerful language can be. When his father tells him to kill the cat that is making noise, Richard does exactly that. He uses his fathers words literally in order to win. Through this win, he is given a little glimpse of the power language has vs. the power violence has.
Chapter one of Black Boy sets up the foundation to the rest of the book by exploring the childhood of Richard Wright. Chapter one gives the reader a greater understanding for Richard’s Wright’s life journey. His childhood, like any other, focuses around his family life. The continuous sense of fear and endless beatings are connected throughout the chapter. This fear is immensely increased after Richard’s mom almost beats him to death after he almost burned down their house. Six-year-old Richard overcomes this fear over his father when he discovers the importance and intelligence behind words. He uses this knowledge when Richard takes his father command to “kill the cat” literally. He knows his father cannot get mad at his because he was just following his orders. A continuous pattern in chapter one is the sense of hunger and the importance of food. Richard’s stomach was never fulfilled and he doesn’t understand why some people are hungry and some are not. Hunger is especially important to think about in chapter one and all throughout the book because the original title was supposed to be Hunger for America. The episodes throughout chapter one connect by revealing Richard Wright’s process of curiosity at a young age. As he starts questioning racial segregation, the audience begins to see the bigger picture of social activism.
Black Boy is about a young boy who faces day to day struggles because of his race. In the first chapter he is too young to understand why he is treated differently. He grows up with the idea that violence is okay. When he burns his house down he knows that he is going to be beaten and he tries to escape from his family. He is also told to beat up a group of young boys before he's allowed to come home. HIs violence grows as he gets older, he kills a kitten in order to upset his father. He begins to hate his father and when he thinks about him he fills with rage. HIs father starts to not be in his life and he stopped supplying food. Richard starts to become hungry and doesn't understand what the feeling of hunger really means. Eventually he begins to associate the feeling of his hunger to the hate for his father. As he grows up he becomes more aware of the way the whites are treated verse him and his family.
Chapter 1 of Richard Wright’s novel, Black Boy, is an essential piece of the novel. It is in this chapter that the readers get introduced to Richard, who is a curious, stubborn, and smart six year old. This chapter also gives a glimpse into Richard’s unfortunate childhood, were he is exposed to physical and mental violence. A reoccurring pattern in this chapter is Richard’s curiosity and expression of language. He knew that if he were to disobey his parents, he would get physically punished, but one day he used his newfound knowledge of language to spin his father’s command. Because he technically did what his father told him to, his parents knew that they could not physically hurt him. Instead the mother used her sense of language to punish him. She mentally abuses him when she makes him burry the cat in the middle of the night by himself, and when she tells him to watch out while he is sleeping. In the chapter Richard begins to comprehend the difference between “whites” and “blacks”. This is where we realizes the injustice that is happening in his society.
Richard Wright, the author of Black Boy, gives readers the ability to detect the multiple patterns and episodes of this book that can lead to the connection of other events in this autobiography. In the first episode we are able to see how restricted Richard is as a young boy; His restriction and fear of authority, cause him to burn the house down and hide under the burning home. Because Richard burned down his house, his mother beat him close to death; this is the first pattern of violence we are introduced to in this chapter. This violent authority is an aspect of the story that is displayed throughout the first chapter. Richard’s father is an authority figure, whom Richard does not have the desire to obey. Richard uses intelligence, language, and curiosity to rebel without actually being punished, especially when he manipulates the instructions his father gave him about killing the kitten. The fact that Richard kills the kitten and cannot be punished for it, gives him the confidence to learn more, and use actions to get his message across. Another pattern revealed in the first chapter is the use and symbolic meaning of white, which is associated with fear, and comes about when Richard begins to familiarize himself with the ideas of race.
Richard Wright’s novel Black Boy offers readers a viewpoint on the racism between black and white makes black people becomes powerless with injustice and unfairness, it also introduced to the recurring themes of the power of language, and hunger. The author chooses to highlight these themes to show out the core theme of social justice. Richard Wright’s intelligence and curiosity make him feels hungry and confused because “Hunger stole upon me so slowly that at first I was not aware of what hunger really meant” (Wright, 14), and later he finds out that it is not only for the physical feeling but also emphasizes Richard’s hunger for literature knowledge, artistic expression and engagement in social and political issues. On the other hand, hunger is also a symbol of the larger emptiness for Richard, which causes him to feel the inhumanity of life and the injustice from the society. In the texture, he exhibits his strong desire to be connected with the world around him, and he shows his “hunger” by learning how to count numbers from the coal man, which makes Richard “overjoyed” and “soon made myself a nuisance by asking far too many questions of everybody.” (Wright, 23) Richard Wright’s strong desire also lets him sees the problems for the justice society of America clearly, but it also lets him realizes the power words hold. Learning how powerful the language is makes Richard show how he was able to manipulate and against his father’s words of “kill that damn thing!” (Wright, 11) To avoid the ignorance by his father to show himself will never be overwhelm by the power from his father, Richard “resolving to defend myself with my father’s rash words, anticipating my enjoyment in repeating them to him even thought I knew that he had spoken them in anger” (Wright, 11-12) to “made him believe that I had taken his words literally.” (Wright, 12) His desire of achieving a triumph over his father also reveals the idea of Richard Wright to against the injustice from American society.
Wright’s hunger is the key and the base of all the episodes. Wright’s parents divorced; his mother did not have enough money to buy food. So he suffered the physical hunger. When he and his brother were waiting their mother in the restaurant, he started to think about social justice “I could not understand why some people had enough food while others did not.” (Wright, 19) Wright not only had physical hunger, but also hungered to understand the world. When Wright got chance to go to school; he developed a new kind of hunger. He learned count from a coal man; he learned reading from his mother. The hunger for knowledge let him understands his surrounding better and it turned to his awareness of whites as separate from blacks. At age of six, Wright had no consciousness of racial differences; everyone was same. When he found that the white man was not the father of the black boy, he was shocked and he began to hunger to know what was “white”. He was shocked and he started to think about the society and he starts to notice the difference between blacks and whites, so he began to be afraid of white, “his ‘white’ face created new fear in me”. (Wright, 31)
These three episodes demonstrate the theme of coming to terms with responsibilities and the absence of childhood at a young age in chapter one of Richard Wright’s Black Boy.
Richard learns that actions have consequences at every age when his father tells him to kill the kitten and he does, thinking that he is teaching is dad a lesson. Richard feels empowered by his actions until he realizes that the emotional consequences were as effective as the violence inflicted on him for doing things way less than killing a kitten. His mom turns the situation on him and powerfully utilizes language to insist that he bury the dead cat and pray for forgiveness. When Richard opens his “mouth but no word came. [His] mind was frozen with horror.”
With his father gone and mother having to work to provide for herself and two sons, Richard is forced to learn to take care of and rely on himself at a young age. He had to learn “as soon as possible to take care of [himself], to dress [himself], to prepare [his] own food; [and] take upon [himself] the responsibility of the flat while she worked,” (Wright 16). As Ricard acquires more responsibility, the reader understands one of the contradictions of him having adult accountabilities because he’s still kid—a vulnerable child. His vulnerability is clearly exhibited when a “gang of boys grabbed [him], snatched the basket, took the money, and sent [him] running home in a panic,” (Wright 16).
He deduces the meaning of hunger from his father’s absence. The feeling of hunger he was familiar with before did not concern him the in way the meaning of hunger did because even though he was hungry, he knew he would eventually get something to eat. This new meaning of hunger “baffled” and “scared” him because he had no idea of when he would get something to eat.
In the Black Boy, Richard is a boy who is not only hunger in food but also to know everything around him. Throughout chapter one, we can see him being hunger in his family, food, the cast system, and even the society that he is living in. In the beginning of the chapter and toward the end of the chapter both shows how bad the relationship is between himself and his father. But in between also shows how he is physically hungry because his father is gone and so the one who brings back the food is gone too. In between also shows his innocence in understanding of cast system toward having a clearer idea of the society he is living in. In the chapter, the quotation mark that he uses for Black and White gives an idea of him not knowing the meaning but sees the difference of the two and learning about them. Richard in chapter one first show his hunger of rebellion when his father asks him to kill the kitten, he said “I knew that he had not really mean for me to kill the kitten, but my deep hate of him urged me toward a literary acceptance of his word (Wright 11).” He certainly knows that his father did not meant to ask him to kill the kitten but in order to let him know to speak carefully so he does as he says so. His hunger of rebellion and use of word appear again in the middle of the chapter in the scene that he is drunk in the saloon, being asked to say some kind of impolite word to earn a nickel. He does not understand what he should do and not to do and whether saying the word is correct or not. He is also hunger in education, he is enjoying in counting 1 to 100 after the coal man taught him and that he is happy to read stories and newspapers. His physical hunger also lead him to think about his father since his father is the one who brings food back but his mom tells him that he is too young to know why his father is gone. Because he is young, he is also hunger in knowing about the cast system in his society, but he can tell the difference such as he has to wait until the Whites to finish their meal to eat and he does not understand why some people had enough food and others did not (Wright 19). But when he knows more of the relationship between the Black and the White such as “The ‘white’ man did not whip the ‘Black’ boy, he beat the ‘black’ boy.” He starts having a different view of them. It is not only the cast system existing in the White (upper class) to the Black (lower class) but from Richard’s line it shows Black is also racism to the White, “Whenever I saw the ’white’ people now I stared at them, wondering what they were really like.” The hunger of racism appears not only once in the chapter and each time Richard seems to know more and more. From the episodes in chapter one, each episode/theme are connected because from being restricted to speak and touch, leads him to his hunger of rebellion and use of word, then hunger of education and finally hunger of knowing what is the difference between him and the white. And most importantly, these hungers related to each other, as the title of the book was originally American Hunger, showing the hungers the minorities were going through during the time.
In the novel, Black Boy, by Richard Wright, the pattern of the power of words is prevelent in every scene in the very first chapter. Whether it’s proving his father wrong or repeating curse words, Wright is exposed to the affects, both negative and positive that words can greatly have on a situation. In the first several pages, a scene where the Wright and his brother are sitting in a room trying not to bother their sick grandmother, is played out. Wright is instructed to “make no noise”, this proves impossible (resulting in a fire) because Wright has a desire to talk and be curious. His curiosity for words strengthens, after a scene where a coal man teaches Wright to count, and his mother decides help him learn to read. Upon learning, Wrights perspective on his world changes, he is able to ask questions and understand. These questions, though lead to a topic that he had once ignored, because “ignorance is powerlessness”. Wright “stumbles upon the relations between blacks and whites and what (he) learns frightens (him).” His inquiry and curiosity for life leads him to a new, scary world view and perspective on society that was never known to him.
Richard Wright presents readers a development of a four-year-old black boy on the recognition and understanding about the society around him. He describes many different events. Those seemingly trivial incidents are actually interrelated to each other. All of these episodes all stem from “hunger”. Hunger is not only physically empty stomach; it’s actually the emptiness of the knowledge and perception about the world. In the growth process, Richard has too many questions, and he tries to answer his world. His curiosity is overwhelming, which leads him to explore the world. He burns the white curtains; when he sees the white people have totally different life from his, he starts to think and question. “I could not understand why some people had enough food and others did not” (Wright, 19). He realizes the distinctions between blacks and whites, and tries to find out the reason that leads to this difference. He learns counting from the coal man, and he has been told many stories from his mother and learns to read. He is curious about everything happening in his neighborhood, and he is voracious to knowledge. In the way of exploring world, he builds up knowledge, and experience the power of knowledge. He learns the power of words that has ultimately effective effects. He takes his father’s word literally and kill the cat, but his father could not beat him. In the later episode, his mother uses “kungry” (Wright, 15) to let him see the effectiveness of words again. He learns some inappropriate words from Saloon, and from school, and know the consequence of using those words. The process of learning and uncovering world is Richard’s response toward his hunger. He gradually has basic understand about the social rules, the white people, and has sense of freedom and fight.
Richard Wright, the author of Black Boy, is not telling his story about his life, but being a social activist. In chapter one, Wright learns to grow up at a very young age, forcing him responsibility and consequences to his actions. Wright rattles his curiosity quite often, which is the reason for the many episodes he has. The first episode displaying a patter was his restriction from being curious. Wright wanted to see what would happen if lit up white curtains, later burning down the house. This curiosity almost caused him his own death by his mother, showing the first patter of violence and fear of his mother and the book. Richard Wright was almost always afraid of his father. He would often tell his brother and him to stay quite because he had to sleep, making it almost impossible for little boys at a young age. His father told him to “kill” the kitten that they had, because it would not stop making noise. Richard wanted to show his father that he was starting to understand the meaning of words. So, he did exactly as his father said and killed the kitten. He is the punished by his mother, not physically but mentally. The notion of fear leads towards the end of the chapter Wright soon realizes that language and their meaning lead to words, which then lead to power.
In chapter 1 of Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy, we are faced with many different episodes that portray Wright's gaining of understanding of the way the world works. As a young child, he likes to explore new things and is always curious about something. An interesting trait that Wright has is that he learned how to use words as a way to fight back. For instance, as he was playing with his brother and a kitten that they had found, his father came in and was complaining about the noise, later saying to "just kill the cat". Although Richard knew that his father did not mean to literally kill the kitten, RIchard knew that by actually killing it would teach his father a lesson. He thought that by killing it, his father couldn't get mad because he was just obeying his words. The pattern that is seen throughout this chapter is the use of different words. Another episode that contains this pattern was when Wright was dragged into a bar and was more or less forced to get drunk. The adults in the bar told him to say a lot of different words and phrases, such phrases that he had heard before, but never had any understanding of the meanings. He went around the bar and later, down the street, mumbling these words without any knowledge of what they meant. This pattern continues to show up in this chapter because it emphasizes the knowledge about society that Richard lacks and has yet to learn but still pursues to comprehend it despite his very young age.
In chapter one of Black Boy, readers are introduced to Richard Wright when he was 6 years old. At six years old, Wright proves to be very curious and insightful. Throughout chapter one Wright tells various episodes of his life in which he begins to find himself and to gain a greater understanding of himself. Patterns of fear, curiosity, violence, and discipline are shown constantly throughout chapter one. In almost every episode wright describes, there is always some element of fear, usually a fear of authoritative figures in his life--especially his mother. Violence is also a major pattern in chapter one. Wright often tells about the violence he encountered at home as a form of discipline and of the violence he took part in on the streets. Wright takes part in violence on the streets in an attempt to please his mother. Throughout chapter one, Richard Wright proves to have a constant yearning and longing for love and approval from his parents--especially his mother, as he depicts in his vision of the white bags hanging over him in his sleep.
In the series of the episodes found in chapter 1, the pattern of the power of language is found. Being uneducated and misunderstood of the language, Richard is powerless. When the people at the salon make him to say nasty things, Richard says those things out without disturbance because he does not know the meaning of the words. In further chapter 2, this ignorance of language extends him to say the offensive, aggressive word such as ‘kiss my back’ to his grandmother. When he writes bad word on the window, his mom makes him to scrub it out. However, his mother does not really explains the power of the word, so he stays ignorant of the word.
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The black boy in this first chapter is about this kid who from such as early age starts having a lot of questions and curiosity about thing, people, justice.. Where he see the difference between hight class and low class not even knowing what it is, but he does see the threat on the different people, he does wander why some people get more then others. where he learns the power of words, how to defeat other people by using the power of language. sins he start curiosity about thing he connecting to the different races and the threat that people give too each other when your are a different race
Richard Wright, a merely curious 6 year old is the main character in Black Boy. We see in the beginning pages the peaking curiosity of Richard and the boredom he has. In a result of Richards’s boredom, he does things such as burning curtains and drinking alcohol and learning new phrases. All of these things Richard does out of boredom seem to result in him getting into trouble. There is a recurring pattern of Richard’s parents not being there and Richard seeing things that peak his interest, which makes him do bad things because he is neglected by his family and seeks for a way to entertain himself. He was never taught the difference between right and wrong and he likes to test the limits. Richard is a very abandoned kid and is forced to learn things on his own and he learns by making the mistakes he does. This is a occurring pattern shown throughout chapter 1 of Black Boy from him burning the draperies in the beginning to him saying phrases he learned at school and getting in trouble for it.
Chapter one of Black Boy is an incredibly important section of the book. It thoroughly builds the personality and identity of Richard through his deep thoughts and experiences as a child. The episodes of his life described in this chapter each have a significant meaning that contribute to a part of Richard’s character as he faces the obstacles in his adolescence. In this chapter he learns a lot about himself and the world around him, for example when he discovers the race relations in the society around him and when he encounters disappointment for the first time. Throughout this first chapter I have seen a pattern of fear. In the many situations he encounters, Richard felt fear, especially in the presence of an authority figure such as his mother or grandparents. Another pattern would be of violence. He experiences violence very often, in his family and on the streets. The symbol of the color “white” also shows up very often in his narrative. It is usually associated fear and violence.
In Chapter One of Black Boy, Richard Wright tells his tales of the early years of his life. He learns the importance of words and the importance of freedom through his different tales of his curiosity and innocence. When he tells his mother he wants to learn, during the school day, he learns some very vulgar words. After writing these words everywhere in town and his mother finds out and beats him; he learns that words can be very powerful because he did not know those words were vulgar during that time. Wright also learns the importance of freedom, especially when his mother teaches him to fight. He talks about how he had won the rights to the streets, and that gives him the freedom to do what he wants. He also learns that freedom is an important part of life and that his freedom is connected to two things: his parents and white people. He sees both of these; his refusal to listen to his parents is one way that he sees freedom and as he visits his father at the plantation, Wright sees that his father has no freedom because of the white people who own him. This is another way that Wright sees freedom and in particular, no freedom. Throughout Chapter One of Black Boy, we see Richard Wright’s stories as a passage into his mind about his ability to learn the importance of words and the importance of freedom.
A six-year-old boy, by the name of Richard Wright is the main character in the autobiography Black Boy. Throughout the first chapter, we discover that Wright is very bored and curious and seems to want some sort of attention. The things that he does to get attention are the things that get him in trouble. The first thing that Wright does to get him in trouble is burning the white curtains. He sees this action as an act of enjoyment and not as something wrong. The second thing that gets him in trouble is hanging the family kitten. His father tells him to hang the cat when he is sleeping because the kitten keeps meowing but does not mean to literally kill it. In this incident, Wright knows that he was not supposed to do it, but wanted to get his fathers attention, showing that he is capable of this action and taking words literally. From these actions, you can see that there is a pattern of Richard Wright getting into trouble and wanting attention.
Richard Wright introduces us to his life by showing us the first major episode that was the foundation of all of his many different experiences. In episode one, we see that Richard is very bored and restricted since he can’t make a lot of noise or do anything that would entertain him because his grandma was sick and trying to rest. He then comes up with the idea of burning straws from a broom to see what would happen to them, but things go awry when he tries to burn the curtain to see if the colors would change, and instead ends up setting the house on fire. He goes and hides under the burning house because he is aware of the consequences he will receive, and he is later beaten so badly by his mother that he becomes ill. This episode shows us that Richard has a curiosity and boredom that can only be fulfilled when he experiments with the things around him. This first episode also shows us that there is a persistent violence inflicted on him by his mother. Although the beatings he receives are supposed to be a restriction to his wonders and thoughts, he hungers for curiosity and his drive to learn and decode his surroundings don’t hold him back from dreaming despite the fact that he is scolded for it. By gaining knowledge and still wanting to learn more, he finds stability and control in his life and he also has a better sense of what the truth is because he’s struggled with so much confusion in his past; and we see this in another scene where Richard wants to begin to read and get a better understanding of what is going in. I think that by showing us his passion for learning, we see that he breaks stereotypes because he shows us that blacks have just as much of a right to learn and be educated as the whites do and that no matter what difficulty wants to try and stop that, he won’t let it happen.
• Richard shows at a young age how drawn he is to making himself smarter and more intellectual. No matter what the case, he likes experimenting: the case of his killing the kitten, seeing the world and feeling it differently through being drunk and his thirst to inspect people’s anatomy. When Richard killed the kitten, he wanted to show how he was able to manipulate his father’s words and actually use them against him. His father probably had no concern that a young Richard Wright would actually kill a kitten, but Richard could not be held responsible because he simply did as his father had told him to do. He showed that he was able to outsmart his own ancestor, his older flesh and blood. Wright was so intrigued when he took his first sip of alcohol. Because of alcohol’s mind-altering effects, people view and experience reality through a whole new pair of eyes; things become more loosey-goosey and one feels more free and in his own element when drunk. This shows how Wright craved different perspectives and creativity even as a young child. Though some people take his joy of seeing people’s bare butts from behind, it can also be viewed as a want to become more familiar with the human anatomy. It can be easily argued that he only did this so that he could fit in with the “cool crowd” or because “young boys are always so disgusting,” but some can argue that he aspires to be well-acquainted with each and every single part of knowledge; he just wanted to learn about the body and what it is able to do. Wright presents about eleven different examples in the first chapter alone of his yearn for knowledge and curiosity.
In chapter one of Black Boy, author Richard Wright primarily discusses the patterns of himself as a young boy discovering the unknown until his questions are answered by using knowledge as his personal motive to gain power. At age four, Wright describes himself as, “wondering just how the long fluffy white curtains would look like” (Wright 4) if he set fire to them. Through this moment of curiosity, Wright is able to find a solution for his question and eventually burns down not only the curtains, but the entire house as well. As a young child, his need for searching for information and then coming to a conclusion, eventually becomes a pattern throughout his autobiography. Wright demonstrates his thirst for power through knowledge when his father tells him to keep the cat quiet by killing it in a figurative way. Wright “resented his shouting and it irked him that he could never make him feel his resentment” (Wright 11) and through his action of literally killing the cat, Wright is able to take control of the situation by taking words as an answer for revenge towards his father. By obtaining knowledge, Wright does not only view this information as power but as stability and consistency in situations where he cannot find any consistency. These episodes in his early childhood help determine who Wright eventually becomes as a person as he develops throughout the novel.
Throughout Richard Wright's Black Boy readers are introduced to the recurring themes of hunger, the power words hold, and the reality of violence corresponding with dominance in this young black boy's early stages of life. The author specifically chose to highlight these themes throughout various episodes, creating a web of connections, to genuinely show readers what it was like to live his life with his struggles. One episode in which Wright connected a couple of these core themes was when his childhood-self realized words would not always be there to protect him in every situation like when his mother forced him to face the bullies at the end of the street. Wright prospered at the end of that battle and even taunted the boys knowing he had, "won the right to the streets of Memphis," expressing that dominance was key in the places he grew up. All in all, Wright not only recalled the time where he began to understand the power of words (and their limitations) but also the importance of maintaining physical power, thus knotting the themes together to emphasize how significant one's words and actions can be when used for the proper battles.
In the first chapter of Black Boy, Richard Wright displays a thirst for knowledge and intellect. In every other episode Richard discovers the power of words. For instance, when Richard literally kills the kitten his father told him to as a figure of speech, he achieves a triumph over his father. His constant curiosity leads him to learning experiences that attribute to the intellectual person he becomes. Richard’s experience at the Saloon was out of pure curiosity and he says vulgar words that he doesn’t recognize as indecent, contributing to his interest of words. After a school day he learns new vulgar words that he decides to write them all over all town, recognizing how influential words can be after the beating his mother gave him. It’s these few experiences in the first chapter that shape Richard Wright and his passion for learning.
In chapter one of Black Boy, Richard is a curious child who finds himself left to his own devices a lot, and is constantly wondering about everything he sees. Throughout the chapter he constantly badgers his mother with questions and gains knowledge from the people around him. Towards the end it Richards starts to learn more about the society he is living in and how there are certain unwritten rules that he must follow. Violence also plays an important role in these episodes whether it is from his mother or street kids. Through the violence he learns about power, and how words have power that violence does not.
In chapter one of Black Boy the main character, Richard Wright, is a young boy who is full of curious thoughts about the world around him. The very first episode the he shares with us is the episode where he burns down his house. This was not an intentional act of destruction, Wright just wanted to see what the curtains would look like in flames. This first episode shows his sense of curiosity. One of the other important episodes shows him killing a cat. His father told him to "kill the cat", but he did not mean it intentionally. Wright never really liked his father that much, so he gladly took his dads words and killed the cat. Wright is still unaware that black and white people are different at this point in his life, it is not until later that he learns about the differences that society has enforced.
The actions displayed through the young Richard Wright and expressed throughout chapter one of his autobiography are reoccurring instances of unpredictability due to a sense of adolescent curiosity. This behavior obstructs Richard’s ability to fully be able to accommodate himself to one specific environment. In the first episode, Richard is forced to silence himself for the benefit of those around him including his sickly grandmother, his abusive mother and hateful father. Richard unexpectedly burns down his house in the innocent attempt at entertainment; little did the six year old know that he would destroy their entire living space. This act later lead to a thorough beating from his mother with a branch from a tree, where he was almost killed. In episode two, readers are introduced to the shocking story of his revolution over his father, and the moment when Richard finally gains mental power over his father. He out smarts his odious father by lynching the cat he was told to get rid of. The acquisition of the power to interpret words and directions in a way that they can be twisted and turned around to the liking of any specific individual is a power that Richard has just discovered and it gives him an incomprehensible edge over his father’s negligence. In many instances, Richard is forced to stand up for himself and over come his fears or mistakes at a young age, exemplifying the harsh and irregular conditions in which he was forced to abide by. This lifestyle may not have been uncommon to people of color living in the 1900’s, but to white people and individuals of the generations that followed, this type of behavior exemplified by both adults and children is deemed as immoral. His extreme mental fear of the gang members is expressed through us through the episode in Wright’s life when his mother forces him to educate himself in the physical act of violence; he is taught that the only method of gaining the respect of the individuals around him is if he physically abuses them, which is exactly what he does. His mind is now open to both verbal and physical weapons to gain the power of those around him. Richard not only over comes fear; he overcomes mental illnesses as well. Richard became an alcoholic when he was about six years old; the unpredictable behavior of a child of such a young age is not to be expected in modern day perceptions. In many ways, the struggles and punishments that Wright was exposed to all individually lead to his overall perception of his engaging curiosity in racism. Similarly, the unpredictability of his actions and exposures may present an unsafe pathway into the future of a society full of racist beliefs.
Robert White’s intelligence and curiosity are highlighted in the first chapter to foreshadow that as he grows, his questions about life will lead him to a deeper understanding of life than his peers. When observing the white family his mother cooks for, starving Wright understands that there is a distinction between the lives of whites and blacks but does not understand the causes of this division. With stories of “the white man” beating “the black boy”, Robert begins to fear whites, realizing that they must have authority. However, he is contradicted when the white police officer he encounters questioned the boy in “a quiet, confidential tone, and…he was not ‘white’ anymore” (Wright, 32). Since no one, white or black, will talk to the boy about the issue of race, Wright knows little about issue but does see the complexity of the issue. This proves to be a dangerous pair with Robert’s impulsive actions, such as burning his house out of curiosity, because as he desires to learn more about race it will cause fear within whites, and ultimately result in harm.
Wright’s curiosity is the base of all episodes occurring throughout chapter one. Asking questions and experimenting was his way of attaining information, because this gave him a sense of power over his oppressors. We see this when his father figuratively told him to kill the noisy kitten, but Richard takes this figure of speech seriously as a way to outsmart his father’s words. This pattern of curiosity throughout his life was his way of obtaining new language, education, and understanding social differences throughout the world. His constant wonder about the relationship between white and black Americans rose after he started his education and began reading newspapers. The article about the white man beating the black man revealed the true reality that his innocence was hiding from him, so when he discovered this interaction between the whites and blacks, he became curious about why racial comparison and marginalization was prevalent in the world. Wrights questioning about the world gives him a deeper understanding of his own intellectual emotions, which we see forming rapidly, especially in such a young period of his life. This also foreshadows his self-discovery and is the start of his racial activism to his audience.
In Richard Wright’s autobiography, Black Boy, he is introduced to the reader as a very curious four-year old boy who has a lot of unanswered questions about life. He tries to answer these questions and settle his curiosity throughout various episodes in the text. His sense of wonder and desire to discover new things ends up getting him in trouble many times, resulting in a burned down home, a dead kitten, and being drunk by age six. At a young age he learns the power of words and language and uses that knowledge to his benefit. Richard is a young black boy growing up in a society where black people aren’t even seen has human. His role in society is extremely insignificant compared to the wealthy whites in his community. This discrepancy is very apparent to him, even at such a young age. He knows that he is less than the whites, but he does not understand why. He knows he is starving but does not understand what hunger is. Richard is dissatisfied and is in search of fulfillment to his curiosities.
In Chapter one of Black Boy, the readers are introduced to Richard Wright’s rough childhood that are full of violent, distressing, and insightful memories. Richard, at a very young age holds knowledge in which he portrays deep and penetrating views of life throughout the different episodes in the story. In the novel, Richard mentions fear consistently through the inflictions of being abused by his mother and thus his rough family life. Under the tough circumstances at his house, and his abusive mother, Richard is forced to grow up as a strong boy. For instance, at one episode, Richard outsmarts his hateful, temperamental father and decides to willingly teach his father a lesson by taking his words literally and killing the cat. This action portrays his sense of mental power over his father. He continues to show this character when Richard’s mother forces him to face the boys who beat him on the way from the grocery store. There he overcomes his fear, is compelled to stand up for himself and thus beats them back. Through this violence, Richard gains a sense of power of the people around him. Not only does he gain the power of people, but he also happens to discover the power of words. And at one point when his mother forces him to educate himself, Wright describes his vigorous curiosity as his mind opens up to questions on the distinction between the “white" people and “black” people—“Though I had long known that there were people called “white” people, it had never meant anything to me emotionally (Wright 23).”
Southern Night titles part one of Richard Wright’s autobiography, which depicts his yearning for adventure. In the first episode of part one, Richard as a four year old, craves freedom to talk and play in a room that restricts these actions. This desire symbolizes Wright’s thirst for freedom while being surrounded by white walls, white curtains, and white cloth while being in the same room as his “white” grandma who suffers illness. Wright throughout the episodes in part one of his autobiography embellishes the word “white” to represent his growth and experience of social activism during the civil rights movement. The color white is depicted in in episode two when Richard is traveling on the Kate Adams boat. A boat signifies a journey being taken starting from departure and ending at the arrival of destination. “I went to bed hoping that the next morning would be the day of departure” (page 9). A trip on a boat can be rooted within adventure. During a boat ride, one is trapped and since the boat that Wright is taking to Memphis is white, we can infer that “white” and the issue of race constantly surrounds him. Richard Wright’s rooted sense of adventure is proven throughout the episodes of Southern Night but is connected to his development of awareness of the issue of race and his growth of social activism.
From the first few pages of Richard Wright’s Black Boy to the end of chapter 1, the reader is provided with stories which exemplify his feeling of being a prisoner in his own home. Richard fills with fear constantly because of his violent parents and the beatings they usually give him. His mother reacts aggressively when Richard burned his house and after he was beaten out of his senses, he felt “chastened whenever [he] remembered that his mother had come close to killing [him] (Wright. 7.)” Throughout chapter 1, Richard shares stories with the reader that portray not only his fear, but also his curiosity. Richard wants to be let out of his cage and discover new things, but he is constantly restricted. As chapter 1 progresses, Richard experiences, learns, and discovers things that he did not know before.
In the first chapter of Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Richard introduces himself as a child of color who does not yet understand the world around him, but is extremely curious about it. In fact, the very first scene is about Richards curiosity, and how it gets him in trouble. Not only does Richard literally feed the flames of the fire, he also proves to later feed the flames of people around him through his questions about the world and life which his family members get angry when prodded by. Just as everything in his life, Richard loses control of the flame and it bursts. In this text there is a constant presence of fear and violence that is already beginning to be engrained in him. The idea that when put in a position of an oppressor, the oppressed adopt the same violent traits as the original oppressor. In Richards case, this is true. His parents are highly abusive towards him, and he is almost killed multiple times by them. Along with the constant presence of violence, Richard begins to get a taste of how powerful language can be. When his father tells him to kill the cat that is making noise, Richard does exactly that. He uses his fathers words literally in order to win. Through this win, he is given a little glimpse of the power language has vs. the power violence has.
Chapter one of Black Boy sets up the foundation to the rest of the book by exploring the childhood of Richard Wright. Chapter one gives the reader a greater understanding for Richard’s Wright’s life journey. His childhood, like any other, focuses around his family life. The continuous sense of fear and endless beatings are connected throughout the chapter. This fear is immensely increased after Richard’s mom almost beats him to death after he almost burned down their house. Six-year-old Richard overcomes this fear over his father when he discovers the importance and intelligence behind words. He uses this knowledge when Richard takes his father command to “kill the cat” literally. He knows his father cannot get mad at his because he was just following his orders. A continuous pattern in chapter one is the sense of hunger and the importance of food. Richard’s stomach was never fulfilled and he doesn’t understand why some people are hungry and some are not. Hunger is especially important to think about in chapter one and all throughout the book because the original title was supposed to be Hunger for America. The episodes throughout chapter one connect by revealing Richard Wright’s process of curiosity at a young age. As he starts questioning racial segregation, the audience begins to see the bigger picture of social activism.
Black Boy is about a young boy who faces day to day struggles because of his race. In the first chapter he is too young to understand why he is treated differently. He grows up with the idea that violence is okay. When he burns his house down he knows that he is going to be beaten and he tries to escape from his family. He is also told to beat up a group of young boys before he's allowed to come home. HIs violence grows as he gets older, he kills a kitten in order to upset his father. He begins to hate his father and when he thinks about him he fills with rage. HIs father starts to not be in his life and he stopped supplying food. Richard starts to become hungry and doesn't understand what the feeling of hunger really means. Eventually he begins to associate the feeling of his hunger to the hate for his father. As he grows up he becomes more aware of the way the whites are treated verse him and his family.
Chapter 1 of Richard Wright’s novel, Black Boy, is an essential piece of the novel. It is in this chapter that the readers get introduced to Richard, who is a curious, stubborn, and smart six year old. This chapter also gives a glimpse into Richard’s unfortunate childhood, were he is exposed to physical and mental violence. A reoccurring pattern in this chapter is Richard’s curiosity and expression of language. He knew that if he were to disobey his parents, he would get physically punished, but one day he used his newfound knowledge of language to spin his father’s command. Because he technically did what his father told him to, his parents knew that they could not physically hurt him. Instead the mother used her sense of language to punish him. She mentally abuses him when she makes him burry the cat in the middle of the night by himself, and when she tells him to watch out while he is sleeping. In the chapter Richard begins to comprehend the difference between “whites” and “blacks”. This is where we realizes the injustice that is happening in his society.
Richard Wright, the author of Black Boy, gives readers the ability to detect the multiple patterns and episodes of this book that can lead to the connection of other events in this autobiography. In the first episode we are able to see how restricted Richard is as a young boy; His restriction and fear of authority, cause him to burn the house down and hide under the burning home. Because Richard burned down his house, his mother beat him close to death; this is the first pattern of violence we are introduced to in this chapter. This violent authority is an aspect of the story that is displayed throughout the first chapter. Richard’s father is an authority figure, whom Richard does not have the desire to obey. Richard uses intelligence, language, and curiosity to rebel without actually being punished, especially when he manipulates the instructions his father gave him about killing the kitten. The fact that Richard kills the kitten and cannot be punished for it, gives him the confidence to learn more, and use actions to get his message across. Another pattern revealed in the first chapter is the use and symbolic meaning of white, which is associated with fear, and comes about when Richard begins to familiarize himself with the ideas of race.
Richard Wright’s novel Black Boy offers readers a viewpoint on the racism between black and white makes black people becomes powerless with injustice and unfairness, it also introduced to the recurring themes of the power of language, and hunger. The author chooses to highlight these themes to show out the core theme of social justice. Richard Wright’s intelligence and curiosity make him feels hungry and confused because “Hunger stole upon me so slowly that at first I was not aware of what hunger really meant” (Wright, 14), and later he finds out that it is not only for the physical feeling but also emphasizes Richard’s hunger for literature knowledge, artistic expression and engagement in social and political issues. On the other hand, hunger is also a symbol of the larger emptiness for Richard, which causes him to feel the inhumanity of life and the injustice from the society. In the texture, he exhibits his strong desire to be connected with the world around him, and he shows his “hunger” by learning how to count numbers from the coal man, which makes Richard “overjoyed” and “soon made myself a nuisance by asking far too many questions of everybody.” (Wright, 23) Richard Wright’s strong desire also lets him sees the problems for the justice society of America clearly, but it also lets him realizes the power words hold. Learning how powerful the language is makes Richard show how he was able to manipulate and against his father’s words of “kill that damn thing!” (Wright, 11) To avoid the ignorance by his father to show himself will never be overwhelm by the power from his father, Richard “resolving to defend myself with my father’s rash words, anticipating my enjoyment in repeating them to him even thought I knew that he had spoken them in anger” (Wright, 11-12) to “made him believe that I had taken his words literally.” (Wright, 12) His desire of achieving a triumph over his father also reveals the idea of Richard Wright to against the injustice from American society.
Wright’s hunger is the key and the base of all the episodes. Wright’s parents divorced; his mother did not have enough money to buy food. So he suffered the physical hunger. When he and his brother were waiting their mother in the restaurant, he started to think about social justice “I could not understand why some people had enough food while others did not.” (Wright, 19) Wright not only had physical hunger, but also hungered to understand the world. When Wright got chance to go to school; he developed a new kind of hunger. He learned count from a coal man; he learned reading from his mother. The hunger for knowledge let him understands his surrounding better and it turned to his awareness of whites as separate from blacks. At age of six, Wright had no consciousness of racial differences; everyone was same. When he found that the white man was not the father of the black boy, he was shocked and he began to hunger to know what was “white”. He was shocked and he started to think about the society and he starts to notice the difference between blacks and whites, so he began to be afraid of white, “his ‘white’ face created new fear in me”. (Wright, 31)
These three episodes demonstrate the theme of coming to terms with responsibilities and the absence of childhood at a young age in chapter one of Richard Wright’s Black Boy.
Richard learns that actions have consequences at every age when his father tells him to kill the kitten and he does, thinking that he is teaching is dad a lesson. Richard feels empowered by his actions until he realizes that the emotional consequences were as effective as the violence inflicted on him for doing things way less than killing a kitten. His mom turns the situation on him and powerfully utilizes language to insist that he bury the dead cat and pray for forgiveness. When Richard opens his “mouth but no word came. [His] mind was frozen with horror.”
With his father gone and mother having to work to provide for herself and two sons, Richard is forced to learn to take care of and rely on himself at a young age. He had to learn “as soon as possible to take care of [himself], to dress [himself], to prepare [his] own food; [and] take upon [himself] the responsibility of the flat while she worked,” (Wright 16). As Ricard acquires more responsibility, the reader understands one of the contradictions of him having adult accountabilities because he’s still kid—a vulnerable child. His vulnerability is clearly exhibited when a “gang of boys grabbed [him], snatched the basket, took the money, and sent [him] running home in a panic,” (Wright 16).
He deduces the meaning of hunger from his father’s absence. The feeling of hunger he was familiar with before did not concern him the in way the meaning of hunger did because even though he was hungry, he knew he would eventually get something to eat. This new meaning of hunger “baffled” and “scared” him because he had no idea of when he would get something to eat.
In the Black Boy, Richard is a boy who is not only hunger in food but also to know everything around him. Throughout chapter one, we can see him being hunger in his family, food, the cast system, and even the society that he is living in. In the beginning of the chapter and toward the end of the chapter both shows how bad the relationship is between himself and his father. But in between also shows how he is physically hungry because his father is gone and so the one who brings back the food is gone too. In between also shows his innocence in understanding of cast system toward having a clearer idea of the society he is living in. In the chapter, the quotation mark that he uses for Black and White gives an idea of him not knowing the meaning but sees the difference of the two and learning about them.
Richard in chapter one first show his hunger of rebellion when his father asks him to kill the kitten, he said “I knew that he had not really mean for me to kill the kitten, but my deep hate of him urged me toward a literary acceptance of his word (Wright 11).” He certainly knows that his father did not meant to ask him to kill the kitten but in order to let him know to speak carefully so he does as he says so. His hunger of rebellion and use of word appear again in the middle of the chapter in the scene that he is drunk in the saloon, being asked to say some kind of impolite word to earn a nickel. He does not understand what he should do and not to do and whether saying the word is correct or not. He is also hunger in education, he is enjoying in counting 1 to 100 after the coal man taught him and that he is happy to read stories and newspapers. His physical hunger also lead him to think about his father since his father is the one who brings food back but his mom tells him that he is too young to know why his father is gone. Because he is young, he is also hunger in knowing about the cast system in his society, but he can tell the difference such as he has to wait until the Whites to finish their meal to eat and he does not understand why some people had enough food and others did not (Wright 19). But when he knows more of the relationship between the Black and the White such as “The ‘white’ man did not whip the ‘Black’ boy, he beat the ‘black’ boy.” He starts having a different view of them. It is not only the cast system existing in the White (upper class) to the Black (lower class) but from Richard’s line it shows Black is also racism to the White, “Whenever I saw the ’white’ people now I stared at them, wondering what they were really like.” The hunger of racism appears not only once in the chapter and each time Richard seems to know more and more. From the episodes in chapter one, each episode/theme are connected because from being restricted to speak and touch, leads him to his hunger of rebellion and use of word, then hunger of education and finally hunger of knowing what is the difference between him and the white. And most importantly, these hungers related to each other, as the title of the book was originally American Hunger, showing the hungers the minorities were going through during the time.
In the novel, Black Boy, by Richard Wright, the pattern of the power of words is prevelent in every scene in the very first chapter. Whether it’s proving his father wrong or repeating curse words, Wright is exposed to the affects, both negative and positive that words can greatly have on a situation. In the first several pages, a scene where the Wright and his brother are sitting in a room trying not to bother their sick grandmother, is played out. Wright is instructed to “make no noise”, this proves impossible (resulting in a fire) because Wright has a desire to talk and be curious. His curiosity for words strengthens, after a scene where a coal man teaches Wright to count, and his mother decides help him learn to read. Upon learning, Wrights perspective on his world changes, he is able to ask questions and understand. These questions, though lead to a topic that he had once ignored, because “ignorance is powerlessness”. Wright “stumbles upon the relations between blacks and whites and what (he) learns frightens (him).” His inquiry and curiosity for life leads him to a new, scary world view and perspective on society that was never known to him.
Richard Wright presents readers a development of a four-year-old black boy on the recognition and understanding about the society around him. He describes many different events. Those seemingly trivial incidents are actually interrelated to each other. All of these episodes all stem from “hunger”. Hunger is not only physically empty stomach; it’s actually the emptiness of the knowledge and perception about the world. In the growth process, Richard has too many questions, and he tries to answer his world. His curiosity is overwhelming, which leads him to explore the world. He burns the white curtains; when he sees the white people have totally different life from his, he starts to think and question. “I could not understand why some people had enough food and others did not” (Wright, 19). He realizes the distinctions between blacks and whites, and tries to find out the reason that leads to this difference. He learns counting from the coal man, and he has been told many stories from his mother and learns to read. He is curious about everything happening in his neighborhood, and he is voracious to knowledge. In the way of exploring world, he builds up knowledge, and experience the power of knowledge. He learns the power of words that has ultimately effective effects. He takes his father’s word literally and kill the cat, but his father could not beat him. In the later episode, his mother uses “kungry” (Wright, 15) to let him see the effectiveness of words again. He learns some inappropriate words from Saloon, and from school, and know the consequence of using those words. The process of learning and uncovering world is Richard’s response toward his hunger. He gradually has basic understand about the social rules, the white people, and has sense of freedom and fight.
Richard Wright, the author of Black Boy, is not telling his story about his life, but being a social activist. In chapter one, Wright learns to grow up at a very young age, forcing him responsibility and consequences to his actions. Wright rattles his curiosity quite often, which is the reason for the many episodes he has. The first episode displaying a patter was his restriction from being curious. Wright wanted to see what would happen if lit up white curtains, later burning down the house. This curiosity almost caused him his own death by his mother, showing the first patter of violence and fear of his mother and the book. Richard Wright was almost always afraid of his father. He would often tell his brother and him to stay quite because he had to sleep, making it almost impossible for little boys at a young age. His father told him to “kill” the kitten that they had, because it would not stop making noise. Richard wanted to show his father that he was starting to understand the meaning of words. So, he did exactly as his father said and killed the kitten. He is the punished by his mother, not physically but mentally. The notion of fear leads towards the end of the chapter Wright soon realizes that language and their meaning lead to words, which then lead to power.
In chapter 1 of Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy, we are faced with many different episodes that portray Wright's gaining of understanding of the way the world works. As a young child, he likes to explore new things and is always curious about something. An interesting trait that Wright has is that he learned how to use words as a way to fight back. For instance, as he was playing with his brother and a kitten that they had found, his father came in and was complaining about the noise, later saying to "just kill the cat". Although Richard knew that his father did not mean to literally kill the kitten, RIchard knew that by actually killing it would teach his father a lesson. He thought that by killing it, his father couldn't get mad because he was just obeying his words. The pattern that is seen throughout this chapter is the use of different words. Another episode that contains this pattern was when Wright was dragged into a bar and was more or less forced to get drunk. The adults in the bar told him to say a lot of different words and phrases, such phrases that he had heard before, but never had any understanding of the meanings. He went around the bar and later, down the street, mumbling these words without any knowledge of what they meant. This pattern continues to show up in this chapter because it emphasizes the knowledge about society that Richard lacks and has yet to learn but still pursues to comprehend it despite his very young age.
In chapter one of Black Boy, readers are introduced to Richard Wright when he was 6 years old. At six years old, Wright proves to be very curious and insightful. Throughout chapter one Wright tells various episodes of his life in which he begins to find himself and to gain a greater understanding of himself. Patterns of fear, curiosity, violence, and discipline are shown constantly throughout chapter one. In almost every episode wright describes, there is always some element of fear, usually a fear of authoritative figures in his life--especially his mother. Violence is also a major pattern in chapter one. Wright often tells about the violence he encountered at home as a form of discipline and of the violence he took part in on the streets. Wright takes part in violence on the streets in an attempt to please his mother. Throughout chapter one, Richard Wright proves to have a constant yearning and longing for love and approval from his parents--especially his mother, as he depicts in his vision of the white bags hanging over him in his sleep.
In the series of the episodes found in chapter 1, the pattern of the power of language is found. Being uneducated and misunderstood of the language, Richard is powerless. When the people at the salon make him to say nasty things, Richard says those things out without disturbance because he does not know the meaning of the words. In further chapter 2, this ignorance of language extends him to say the offensive, aggressive word such as ‘kiss my back’ to his grandmother. When he writes bad word on the window, his mom makes him to scrub it out. However, his mother does not really explains the power of the word, so he stays ignorant of the word.
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