Black Boy
Growing up as a Negro in the South in the early 1900’s is not that easy, for some people tend to suffer different forms of oppression. In this case, it happens in the autobiography called written by Richard Wright. The novel is set in the early part of the 1900’s, somewhere in deep Jim Crow South. Richard Wright, who is obviously the main character, is also the protagonist. The antagonist is no one person in particular, for it takes many different forms called "oppression" in general. The main character over comes this "oppression" by rebelling against the common roles of the black, Jim Crow society. Richard Wright’s character was affected in early childhood by the effects of societal ...
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Wright, and all other blacks in the South down. Another example is when is at the rail road station with his mother, and as they are waiting for the train, he sees something he has never seen, "…for the first time I noticed that there were two lines of people at the ticket window, a "white" line and a "black" line," (55). This excerpt is demonstrating how this scene of Jim Crow laws is keeping a certain group of people apart, which is also another form of societal oppression. Societal oppression occurs again when Richard is "hanging" out with his friends, and their conversation with each other leads on to the subject of war. One of his friends really get into the subject and says, " ‘Yeah, they send you to war, make you lick them Germans, teach you how to fight and when you come back they scared of you,’ "(90). This quote means that the "white" people put the "black" people on the front line to defend our country, and when they come back, they can not accept them, therefore ...
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can do the beating, which is completely wrong. Another case of internalized oppression occurs when Richard says a bad word, and then his Aunt Jody lectures him by saying, " ‘Richard, you are a very bad, bad boy,’ "(108). Later in the passage, he also says that he does not care that he is a "bad boy." That states that Richard believes that he is a bad person, which means he is experiencing internalized oppression. Later in the novel, after Richard read some books, he then wants to use the words he has learned as weapons, but he could not, because by him using the words it frightened him. This is internalized oppression, for Richard thinks of the words as something sacred only white ...
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Black Boy. (2004, April 4). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Black-Boy/5700
"Black Boy." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 4 Apr. 2004. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Black-Boy/5700>
"Black Boy." Essayworld.com. April 4, 2004. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Black-Boy/5700.
"Black Boy." Essayworld.com. April 4, 2004. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Black-Boy/5700.
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