Alienation Exposed in Richard Wrights Black Boy :: Wright Black Boy Essays

Alienation Exposed in Black Boy From the early days of Richards childhood, Richard was always estrange from his environment. Even though he tried to distance himself from the prejudice all around him, the white hoi polloi still tried to turn him into the stereotypical Confederate colour person. However, throughout the story Richard is also estrange by his profess people and perhaps even more then from the white people. Richard was always a rebel, from his boyhood to his older teenage years. Richards grandmother was always excessively beating him. From the beginning, Richard would not subdue himself to the white man like the other black people around. The white people knew that he was different from other black men. Whites were scared because Richard challenged the system that they had created to insure white supremacy. They feared Richard, and some of the white people felt it inevitable to act out their racist feelings in order to cover up their fear. White coworkers beat Richard because his boss was kind to him. Richard later had to leave a satisfactory job because those racist co-workers would kill him. When the principal at Richards school had asked Richard to slip away a speech to a large audience of white and black people, Richard refused to read the principals prepared speech. By reading the principals speech, Richard was saying what the white power wanted him to say and to Richard this would be well-favoured in to the very thing he hated so much. Richard was go forthing to leave school without a diploma instead of this. White people alienated Richard from his environment because he did not accept the way of life that other black people did. Richards relatives never understood Richard and because of this he was alienated from his family and his own people. Shorty is the young black boy who gets beat by the white people and jokes about it. Richard hates Shorty because he accepts what Richard finds so disgusting. Richard goes over in his mind the different choices he can make to deal with the feelings he has. Richard does not want to give in and be a slave to the white people. He would never give in and become a slave because he has hated that idea since day one. Richard contemplates transferring his hatred and frustration out on other blacks, but knows that will not aid the situation.