In his novel Black Boy, we see Richard Wright develop from childhood to adulthood in a span of about five years. In his development we also see his change in attitude towards whites and towards blacks. In his early years, Richard had trouble grasping the concept that whites and blacks are “different”; “Though I had long known that there were people called “white” people, it had never meant anything to me emotionally. To me they were merely people like other people…” (23 Wright). The innocence that Wright has at this point in his life seems to foreshadow how awful it will be when he discovers that the rest of his world doesn’t see all people as equals. As we read further in the novel we see Wright begin to change how he sees whites, and how he sees blacks. Wright talks about how he began to play the role that he was given, “…the white boys and the black boys, began to play our traditional racial roles as though we had been born to them…” (83). Through this sentence seeing themselves as less than whites, and hating them seems like it was destiny, which maybe it was because of how they were conditioned growing up. This brings us back to the idea of how is a slave/master made. How is racial tension created? Is it conditioned? Or is it destined to happen (especially in this time period).
In the first 3 chapters of Black Boy, it was interesting to think about the different gender roles that were present. Black Boy shows us different gender roles at the beginning than Jacobs and Douglass. In both Jacobs and Douglass it was men that would beat slaves and have power to discipline. In Jacobs, there was the angry mistress who would try to discipline Linda but in reality she had little power over her. In Black Boy Richard is frequently beaten, sometimes close to death, by his mother and grandma. Richard’s mom and grandma hold all the power in the household unlike typical families. It shows how in the absence of a male figure, the women often have to take up the roles of both men and women. Although his grandma was married, she still was in charge of disciplining him. Since this takes place in Jim Crow South, it can show us how some roles and ideas changed after the civil war ended. But how did this reversal of roles come about? Did the destruction of the "old south" really create a new gender roles or is this simply an anomaly?
In the first 3 chapters of Black Boy, it was interesting to think about the different gender roles that were present. Black Boy shows us different gender roles at the beginning than Jacobs and Douglass. In both Jacobs and Douglass it was men that would beat slaves and have power to discipline. In Jacobs, there was the angry mistress who would try to discipline Linda but in reality she had little power over her. In Black Boy Richard is frequently beaten, sometimes close to death, by his mother and grandma. Richard’s mom and grandma hold all the power in the household unlike typical families. It shows how in the absence of a male figure, the women often have to take up the roles of both men and women. Although his grandma was married, she still was in charge of disciplining him. Since this takes place in Jim Crow South, it can show us how some roles and ideas changed after the civil war ended. But how did this reversal of roles come about? Did the destruction of the "old south" really create a new gender roles or is this simply an anomaly?
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