Chapter One Summary:

Black Boy, the autobiographical account of Richard Wright, begins with his childhood in Natchez, Mississippi. Richard is four years old, living with his younger brother, his parents, and his grandmother who is bed-ridden. In a fit of mischief and spontaneity, Richard sets fire to some white curtains. The fire escalates, burning down half of the house. Trying to escape punishment, Richard hides underneath the house. When his father finds him, Richard is beaten almost to death and falls into a delirious sickness.

The family moves to Memphis, Tennessee where they live in a tenement. With his father working as a night porter, Richard and his brother are not allowed to make any noise during the day. One day when a stray kitten begins to make noise, his father yells to: "Kill that damn thing!" Richard, wanting to anger his father, kills the kitten by strangling it even though he realizes that his father's words were not meant to be taken literally. But Richard's mother crushes him with "the moral horror involved in taking a life." During the evening, she orders him to bury and pray for the cat. Richard, disgusted and afraid, is able to bury the cat but runs away when his mother forces him to ask for the Lord's forgiveness.

Hunger haunts Richard and his family, living in poverty and without much to eat. His father abandons the family, and Richard begins to associate his pangs of hunger with his father's image. His mother takes a job as a cook for white families. One evening, she tells Richard that he must do the grocery shopping for the household, giving him a list and some money. When he goes past the corner, a gang of boys grabs him, snatch his basket, and take the money. His mother gives him more money, which is again stolen by the same boys. When Richard returns, his mother hand him more money and a large stick, kicking him out of the house until he learns to fight back. Richard blindly beats the gang of boys using the stick as a weapon, finally bringing the groceries home.

While his mother is at work, Richard gets into mischief with other neglected black children, spying on people in the public outhouses. To keep her children out of mischief, Richard's mother sometimes brought the two boys to work. Richard wonders why the white people have food and he was left hungry.

While his mother was at work, he also frequented the local saloon, begging for money, peering under the door, and talking to drunkards. One day, a man drags him into the saloon and orders Richard to drink a whiskey. Soon, Richard is drunk, and for a few drinks and some money, provides entertainment to the bar by shouting obscenities that the men tell him to shout. Everyday, Richard returns to the saloon until he craves alcohol. Not being bale to stand it, his mother finally places him in the care of an old black woman to watch over the boys.

When schoolchildren would leave their books on the sidewalk to go and play, Richard taught himself how to read various words. One day, his mother asks him to wait for the coal deliveryman while she and his younger brother were at work. Upon learning that Richard is unable to count, the deliveryman sit him down and teaches Richard to count to 100. When his mother sees that he can count, she encourages him to read and soon, he is able to read the newspaper. He learns to ask too many questions, and this way, learns about the relationship between blacks and whites. He does not understand how the distinction is made because his grandmother was very white and "never looked Œwhite'" to him. When a white man beat the black boy in the neighborhood, Richard becomes bewildered with confusion.

Richard begins school at the Howard Institute and on his first day, is very reluctant to go. Scared and unable to speak from being so nervous, he sits and listens to the other students. At recess, he hangs around a group of older boys and learns new expletives and profanity. When he returns home for the day, he shows off his newfound vocabulary by writing the words he learned in soap on neighborhood windows. When his mother learns of his activities, she forces him to go outside and wash every single word off with water.

Richard's mother becomes very religious, and sometimes drags him to Sunday school. One Sunday evening, the preacher is invited over to their house for dinner: fried chicken. But before he may eat the chicken, Richard's mother tells him that he must finish his soup. The preacher, already finished with his soup, has finished several pieces of chicken. When Richard finally finishes what seems to be his bottomless bowl of soup, he cries: "That preacher's going to eat all the chicken!" Hunger again subsumes him when his mother denies him dinner for his bad manners.

Hunger is with Richard at all times. His mother tries to sue his father for child support, but the judge rules against her favor. When there is no longer enough money to pay the rent, Richard and his brother are put in and orphanage run by Miss Simon. Miss Simon disallows visits from their mother, claiming that she spoils them with attention. She also tries to win Richard's confidence by making him her personal helper. But Richard is unable to do the small task she asks of him, instead standing still and crying. He then runs away from the orphanage, and is brought back by some white policemen.

On his mother's next visit, Richard is given the choice of staying in the orphanage or asking his father for money. He and his mother confront his father for a second time, outside of court. His father has brought another woman with him, who thinks Richard is "cute." Richard leaves that day with the feeling of "something unclean." He describes a meeting with his father twenty-five years later, at a plantation in Mississippi. Older, Richard pities and forgives his father. He sees his father as "a black peasant whose life had been hopelessly snarled in the city," the same city that provides Richard with success and knowledge later in life.

Chapter One Analysis:

Black Boy is written in retrospect, from the viewpoint of grown and matured Richard Wright. The style of Wright's first-person narratives brings two important factors into the story. The first is that the reader is allowed into the insights of the author on his own childhood. Wright is able to make a very powerful commentary regarding the era in which he documents in Black Boy. Second, we must realize that although the accounts are taken as autobiographical, Wright's narrative allows him the freedom to invent rather than recording only the events and facts of his childhood. Wright does, in fact, generalize his own experiences to draw conclusions about the manner in which society functions.

From the accounts of his childhood, we can sense that Richard feels alienated from his family. He is fearful of his mother's intense beatings, careful to avoid his father, and deathly afraid of his grandmother's white image. This theme of alienation is one that continues, both in relation to Richard's family, the black community, as well as the white community. This sense of isolation comes out in rebellion, evidenced by his burning the house down and killing the kitten. Richard kills the kitten out of resentment towards his father and his unwillingness to obey authority. Richard's parents and relatives play a wavering role between subordinators who try to suppress him and authority figures that try to raise with him under strict moral rule. The theme of alienation is well developed later in the novel, when he is introduced into the "white world."

The role of violence in Black Boy is also important in the novel. At a young age, Richard is still unaware of the incredibly violence he is capable of. When he kills the cat, he does so out of anger and fails to realize the moral reprehensibility of his act until looking back in retrospect. The cat can be seen as a symbol of the repressed: innocent, unknowing, and unaware. When Richard ties a makeshift noose, he mimics the hanging of black men, an image prevalent during an era dominated by the Klu Klux Klan and Jim Crow segregation laws. Similarly, Richard is able to earn his way to walk on the street when he learns to fight the gang of boys who had previously assaulted him on his way to the grocery store. This violence is again repeated in the harsh beatings that he receives from his elders. In this way, Wright is able to portray violence as a way to oppress, a tool of the control.

In juxtaposition to the violent imagery, Wright is able to portray a kind of innocence in his childhood years. Richard possesses a mischievous spirit and is not sure of how "the world" works. Asking his mother "why did the Œwhite' man whip the Œblack' boy," Richard is still unaware of the social relationship between blacks and whites. "To me [whites] were merely people like other people," he says. Similarly, when Richard traipses around the saloon, he has no idea of the grossness of the words he repeats for the entertainment of the adults.

Throughout chapter one, as well as the rest of the novel, Wright places a special emphasis on the theme of hunger. Growing up in poverty, Richard is always hungry, yearning for food and left with a feeling of emptiness. This image of hunger is also used by Wright to display Richard's thirst for knowledge: he is hungry to learn about the world, to devour knowledge. This hunger for knowledge reflects the growth ­ or want of ­ of Richard as an intellectual and artist.

Another device that that Wright employs in Black Boy is dualism, specifically between black and white. There is a constant play of words off the notion of "black and white:" Richard's white-looking grandmother, the white man who beats the black boy, the darkness of night, the white boat he dreams of, the black-and-white horses he spots. This dualism in imagery is a reflection of the dualism that Richard experiences in society, between the black community and the white community.

Chapter Two Summary:

Richard, his brother, and mother leave town to live with his aunt in Elaine Arkansas, and en route, they stop to visit Granny in Jackson, Mississippi. Granny's house is two-stories, with long hallways and white plastered walls. To support the household, Wright's grandmother boarded a black schoolteacher with whom Richard was half afraid and half infatuated with. One day, Richard asks what Ella is reading and she proceeds to tell him the fairly tale of Bluebeard from 1001 Arabian Nights. When Granny walks in on them, she stops Ella, claiming that the story is "the Devil's work." Never hearing the end of the tale, Richard is filled with a sense of emptiness and hunger.

One day, Granny watches the two boys to make sure they wash themselves properly. When Richard fools around in the bathwater, Granny orders him to bend over and begins to scrub his behind. Without thinking, Richard tells her to "kiss back there" when she is through. Still not realizing the perverseness of his comment, he does not know why he is being punished with severe beatings. Thinking that Ella has taught him "foul practices," Granny forces Ella to move out of the house.

On the train ride to Elaine, Richard realizes that at his grandmother's house he has gained a sharp and lasting impression of the relationship between whites and blacks. During his stay with Aunt Maggie and Uncle Hoskins, Richard is always surprised to see so much food on the table; Uncle Hoskins owned a saloon that catered to blacks who worked in the sawmills and experienced a great deal of economic success. Still in disbelief, Richard often steals dinner rolls from the table and hides them in his pockets and around the house. One day Uncle Hoskins takes Richard on a buggy ride. Claiming that he is going to drive the buggy into the middle of the river so that the horse can drink water, Uncle Hoskins drives the buggy into the river until the water level is very high. Frightened, Richard attempts to jump out. Back on land, Richard refuses to listen or speak to him.

Uncle Hoskins always left for work in the evenings to tend to the saloon. One morning, he fails to return. At dinnertime, the family learns that white men who coveted his successful business have shot Uncle Hoskins. Quickly, the family packs their clothes and dishes into a farmer's wagon and, without a funeral, leave for Granny's house.

At Granny's house, Richard sees a line of soldiers as well as a chain gang, mistaking the black men for elephants. After a period of time, his mother moves the family back to West Helena, tired of Granny's strict religious routine. Back in West Helena, Richard and his brother stay at home while Aunt Maggie and his mother works as cooks during the daytime. The neighborhood children often sang racist songs about the Jewish proprietor of the corner grocery store. Wright claims that the distrust and antagonism towards the Jewish was bred in his cultural heritage.

One Saturday afternoon, a young girl mentions to Richard that something is being sold in the flat next door. Curious, Richard stand on a chair and peers through the window, spying on what he does not realize is prostitution. He falls of his chair, startling the landlady's "customers." When his mother returns, the landlady requests that either his mother beat him for spying or the entire family moves out. Indignant, Richard's mother refuses to beat him and the family moves to another house on the same street.

Meanwhile, Aunt Maggie begins having secret visits at night from a man who is introduced to Richard and his brother as "Professor Matthews." The boys are forbidden to tell anybody about Prof. Matthews, who is going to be their new uncle. One night, Aunt Maggie and "uncle" move out in the middle of the night. From the bits of conversation the Richard is able to gather, he realizes that his "uncle" has killed somebody and must flee. Richard's mother warns him never to mention what he has seen and heard; otherwise "the white people would kill [him]."

With Aunt Maggie gone, the household income was reduced significantly and Richard was always hungry. Panning to sell his poodle, Betsy, for a dollar, he washes her and takes her around to the houses in a white neighborhood. On woman tells Richard she does not have a dollar, but can give him 97 cents for the dog and pay him three cents later that evening. Getting nervous and wanting his dog back, he refuses to sell Betsy for less than a dollar. A week later, Betsy is run over by a truck.

Richard spends his days engrossed in his own world of fantasy and superstition. When his mother finally obtains a higher paying job, she sends him to school. Though he is capable of reading and writing, Richard is paralyzed by fright and cannot even write his won name. One day, class is let out early. Whistles and bells pollute the air, and Richard learns the war is over. For the first time, he looks up and sees a plane, mistaking it for a bird.

Christmas comes, and Richard does not go out and play with the other children; given only one orange, he "nurses" it all day, and finally savors eating it just before going to bed.

Chapter Two Analysis:

At the start of the chapter, Wright criticizes the black community for their lack of cultural unity and tradition. This belief seems to stem from Wright's own experiences of alienation from the black community as well as his own family. Wright was always quick to point out that despite the oppressive society created by white men and the Southern tradition, blame was to be held over the black community for allowing themselves to be subordinated. He claims that black life in America was essentially bleak, and that the emotional strength of the community was simply born out of "negative confusions." In chapter two, this portrayal of flight, fear, and confusion is reflected in Richard's own constant moving. Moving from orphanage, to his grandmother's, to his Aunt Maggie's and back to West Helena. Wright also depicts the image of feeling versus fighting when "uncle" and Aunt Maggie leave town to avoid the law.

This constant need to "flee" is manifested in Richard's feelings of alienation with his schoolmates. Before attending school in West Helena, Richard was absorbed in the activities of the other neglected children who roam the street playing pranks. In school, Richard describes himself using the metaphor "as still as stone" because his feeling of isolation almost paralyzes him. Among the other black children there is no sense of friendship or unity. Instead, Richard is mistrusting of the others, hating them as well as himself.

It is this mistrust that characterizes a large portion of Richard's childhood. In chapter two, we see this evidenced in his unwillingness to trust Uncle Hoskins after he drives the buggy into the water. In chapter one, the same paralysis that occurs in school seems to occur with Miss Simon, who attempts to win over Richard's confidence. This distrust is also seen in Richard's aversion to religion. Unlike his extremely religious grandmother, Richard fails to place his faith in any kind of God. In the previous chapter, we see his annoyance with the preacher who eats all the chicken as well his reluctance to say a prayer for the dead cat. In chapter two, Richard describes his obsession with "magic possibilities:" his own made-up superstitions. These superstitions can be construed as a kind of backlash against conventional organized religion. Wright explains these superstitions as the result of believing he "had no power to make things happen outside of [himself] in the objective world." In other words, Richard's own distrust of society, family, and religion causes him to internalize everything: his emotions, thoughts, actions, and beliefs.

In this chapter, we see that Richard begins to understand more about the social relations between blacks and whites. But unlike his mother, his hatred for the white community stems much deeper than racial injustice. Part of Richard's internalization of emotion causes him to place the anger he has built toward his parents and others into his anger towards whites. He describes how upon hearing rumors about racial beatings and murders he began to imagine men against whom he was powerless, giving "meaning to confused defensive feelings that had long been sleeping." White people begin to become symbolic of he general oppressor, representing every fear and authority figure that had once intimated Richard despite the fact that he, himself, had never been abused by whites.

In chapter two, the theme of dualism is emphasized not only in his discussion of blacks versus whites, but also in Wright's use of the war as a background. World War I seems an appropriate setting for the chapter because the war in the background is a macrocosm of the emotional war inside Richard. It also seems to be an important image because of Wright's later involvement with the Communist Party and their agenda for unity.

It is ironic that Wright describes the antagonism displayed by the black community toward Jews as part of their "cultural heritage." For the same reasons that the whites persecute the blacks, the black children persecute the Jews with their tawdry songs and chants: ignorance. There was no reason for their beliefs other than the fact that it was taught to them in home and in Sunday school.

Two important symbols that are introduced at the end of the chapter are the image of the airplane and the orange Richard is given on Christmas Day. The plane, which Richard is not familiar with, can be taken as a symbol of hope. He sees it during a celebration for the end of the war, perhaps making the plane a representation of peace. To Richard, who thinks it is a bird, the idea of man flying is unbelievable. After building a world of possibility and unbelievable superstitions, it seems to bring hope to Richard that something so incredulous could happen. An orange often times symbolize luxury, but for Richard, it seems to mean the exact opposite. It is a meager supplement for his hunger and also promotes his isolation. He watches and guards over it, staying away from the other children. The orange appears to symbolize Richard's reality and the fantasy that is forbidden to him.

Chapter 3 Summary:

Richard is now older, associating with a gang of older Black Boys who share what he describes as his "learned" hostility toward white people and the "degrees of values" assigned to race. He analyzes a typical afternoon with his gang: their conversation, their attitudes, and their ideologies. According to Wright, the gang's dialogue is how "the culture of one black household was thus transmitted to another black household." With the gang, Richard also participates in fights against white boys, throwing rocks and bottles, sometimes needing medical attention afterwards.

One day, Richard and Leon find their mother in a comatose state. After calling the neighbors and a doctor, they find that she has had a stroke and that her entire left side is paralyzed. When his grandmother arrives, they move Ella to Jackson, Mississippi where all of her relatives have gathered. Meanwhile, Richard has stopped eating and sleepwalks. His relatives decide that Richard and his brother will be separated to live with different families. Leon, it has been decided, will move to Detroit with Aunt Maggie to finish his schooling. Richard, however, is given a choice of which he would like to live with. Although jealous of his brother who is moving to the North, Richard chooses to live Uncle Clark in Greenwood, the closest location to Jackson.

After moving, Uncle Clark and Aunt Jody decide to enroll Richard in school immediately. At school, Richard is accepted by his peers after standing his ground during a fight. On his way home, he finds a ring in the street. Taking out the stone and leaving the ring's prongs standing up, the ring becomes a makeshift weapon. The next day at school, no one challenges him to fight after seeing his weapon and Richard knows that he has truly been accepted.

Mr. Burton, the owner and former occupant of Uncle Clark's house stops by one evening. He tells Richard about how his own dead son had once lived in Richard's room and slept in Richard's bed. Frightened by the prospect of ghosts, Richard cannot fall asleep in his won bed, but his uncle and aunt disallow him to sleep elsewhere. He suffers from insomnia and nightmares, and his studies at school are hurt by his lack of sleep.

One evening, Richard takes the water pail to fill outside and drops it in his sleepiness. Wet and tired, he lets out a string of swear words. Aunt Jody hears his foul language and later that night, Uncle Clark whips Richard. Afterwards, Richard tells his uncle that her wishes to return to Jackson. He leaves by train the very next Saturday.

Richard does not return to school in Jackson. Instead, he stays at home and watches his mother grow increasingly sick. After being taken away for an operation in Clarksdale, Richard knows that his mother has gone out of his life. He ceases to react to her: "My feelings were frozen." Wright explains that these experiences with his mother - and all his suffering - acted as motivation for his interest in intellectual activity, the only thing that made him feel alive.

Chapter 3 Analysis:

Wright is often praised for his ability to write profound, psychologically intense novels. Here, we see one method he uses effectively portray his characters and their environments: dialogue. The chapter opens with Richard analyzing line-by-line a typical conversation between himself and the gang. This dissection of conversation is important in understanding Richard's mentality growing up because it analyzes his interaction with his peers. In reading their dialogue, we sense that the conversation skims the surface of an issue that runs deeper. The gang's words and actions revolve around their racial insecurities, confusion, and hatred without really discussing racism. This portrayal of the gang relates to Wright's own criticism of the black community for allowing themselves to be subservient to whites.

In chapter 3, the theme of isolation comes into play. Richard as a Black Boy is isolated from the world of the "white people," but this isolation is felt within his own race as well. Within he black community, he is never able to find a confidant and does not allow himself to reveal his feelings to anyone. When he enters into the gang, he seems to find comrades among his fellow gang members, but their relationship is superficial - based on their similar racial prejudices rather than friendship. The racial tension between blacks and whites is the only common factor that Richard seems to share with those he befriends, which come into play later on in his autobiographical account. In a way, these tensions consume Richard and his attitude; his seemingly violent nature belies the anger and hatred that he stores emotionally. Similarly, when Richard must make friends at the new school in Greenwood, he must fight to gain trust and respect.

His feeling of isolation is not limited to his peers. His hostility toward Uncle Clark and Aunt Maggie is one that is repeated toward his other relatives in later chapters. For Richard, Uncle Clark and Aunt Maggie provide routine and restraint that he is unused to. From the start, we see that Richard is different because of his strong will and insight. In some ways, refusing to sleep in his own bed can be interpreted as a manifestation of his unwillingness to obey authority or to conform.

One source for Richard's isolation is revealed when he claims that after his mother's operation, she becomes dead to him. Constantly sick and in pain, his mother becomes a symbol of the suffering Richard has encountered and will encounter throughout the rest of his life. By disallowing himself any emotional reaction to her pain and sickness, he creates a facade for himself. We see that Richard deals with his pain essentially by building an emotional wall around him.

Chapter 4 Summary:

Now twelve, Richard lives with his grandparents, mother, and Aunt Addie in Jackson. An ardent member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Richard's grandmother forces him into an environment surrounded by religion and prayer. Because of her religious beliefs, Granny rarely serves meat of any kind. Instead, Richard lives off of lard and gravy, again feeling hunger.

Granny believes that one sinful person in a household can bring down the entire family, and tries to persuade Richard to "confess to her God." Richard is thus enrolled in the religious school, where Aunt Addie is the only teacher. Her first experience teaching, animosity instantly springs between her and Richard. Wright describes her as "determined that every student should know... that [he] was a sinner of whom she did not approve." Richard views his fellow pupils as "willess," devoid of emotion.

One afternoon, Aunt Addie reproaches Richard for eating in school, pointing at walnut crumbs on the floor under his desk. Knowing that it was the boy in front of him who had been eating walnuts, Richard denies the accusation. In doing so, he accidentally calls her "Aunt Addie" instead of "Miss Wilson." Richard does not want to "tattle," and withstands Aunt Addie's lashings, realizing that her anger storms more from her own insecurity rather than his wrongdoing. At home, Aunt Addie tries to beat Richard again, but he fights back and grabs a kitchen knife to use for defense.

Richard continues at the religious school, but stops studying. Spending his time paying with the boys, he finds that the only games they know are "brutal ones." Aunt Addie's orders them to play "pop-the-whip," where the boys line up to form a human whip. The only time Richard sees Aunt Addie laugh is when he is "popped" off the end of the line, his head bruised and bleeding.

At home, "granny maintain[s] a hard religious regime," forcing Richard to pray and withstand all-night ritualistic prayer meetings. Wright writes that had his personality not already been shaped and formed by the conditions of his life, he may have found God. Instead, he remains unaffected. Richard is growing and he begins to feel his hormones surge. In church, the only thing he can do is lust for the elder's wife. He even finds that he is sexually stimulated by the "sweet sonorous hymn."

When a religious revival is announced, Richard feels pressure to be "brought to God." One of the neighborhood boys is sent over to "befriend" Richard. Even Granny tries to convince Richard to see God. During one evening sermon, Richard attempts to allay his grandmother's pressures by telling her that if he saw an angel like Jacob, he would believe in God. But she mishears him and thinking that Richard has actually seen an angel, proceeds to tell the entire congregation. The incident causes Granny a great embarrassment and, out of guilt, Richard promises to pray for an hour each day.

During his daily hour, Richard finds new ways of wasting time. One day, he decides to write a story about an Indian girl who commits suicide by drowning herself. After reading the story to a young woman next door, Richard experiences a strange feeling of gratification.

Chapter 4 Analysis:

Under his grandmother's religious supervision, Richard once again feels hunger, both physically and intellectually. For Richard, religion is more of a hindrance than a path to salvation. It is his grandmother's religious beliefs that not only prevent him from being adequately fed, but also stunt his intellectual growth. His education at the religious school is almost a joke and any literature other than the Bible is considered "the Devil's work" by Granny and Aunt Addie. Religion is another obstacle set down by authority to make him conform.

Interacting with his peers at the religious school, he comes to the conclusion that he does not need religion to be strong. Richard sees that the other boys are "willess." When he is beaten for eating in school, he realizes that there is no solidarity among these children, and that the students have no moral or brotherly obligation toward each other. The neighborhood boys sent to convince Richard to join in the revival disgusts Richard because of his own ignorance. Rather than open his heart toward religion, Richard is probably inclined to become more isolated and independent.

It is this sense of isolation and independence that, in the end, drives Richard toward writing. In this chapter, we still see that Richard is young and naive. He does not realize that power that words have (a power he will discover later in life). Instead, his writing brings him satisfaction only because his words confuse others. The reaction of the young lady will be echoed later in the novel when others read Richard's writing and question him.

Chapter 5 Summary:

Granny and Aunt Addie, giving up on Richard as lost, force him to do his own chores. Richard enters Jim Hill public school with only one year of unbroken study. On the first day of school, he is challenged to fight with two of the school bullies. Worried that he will not be accepted, he takes the challenge and is reprimanded by the teacher. Nevertheless, Richard excels school, and is promoted from the fifth to the sixth grade in two weeks. Most of his schoolmates work mornings, evenings, and Saturdays to earn enough money for clothes, books, and lunch. But Granny does not allow Richard to work on the Sabbath due to her Seventh Day Adventist beliefs. Unable to work, Richard goes hungry during school while all his schoolmates buy lunch. Hunger plagues Richard, making him weak.

In class, another rebellious Black Boy asks Richard why he doesn't buy lunch. Learning that Richard needs a job, the boy tells Richard about a job selling papers. The papers are published in Chicago and the boy tells Richard the job's benefit: he can make money as well as read the magazine/comic strip that comes with the paper. With Granny's approval, Richard sells the papers in the "Negro area" for a dime each. reading only the magazine supplement. One day, a family friend who regularly buys the papers asks Richard if he knows what he is selling. The man sits Richard down, showing him the racist propaganda and the Ku Klux Klan articles in the paper. Disgusted with his own ignorance, Richard throws his paper away and never sells them again.

Meanwhile, Richard excels at his studies, burning through volumes of books and outside reading. When summer came, Richard is still not allowed to work during Sabbath. One summer night, Richard tries to interject in one of Granny and Aunt Addie's religious debates. To punish him for opening his mouth, Granny reaches to slap him but Richard ducks in time to avoid her blow. Instead, Granny' momentum sends her down the porch steps, leaving her barely conscious and bed-ridden for six weeks. Aunt Addie confronts Richard, saying: "you are evil. You bring nothin' but trouble!" Addie threatens to beat Richard, and for a month, Richard carries a kitchen knife to bed with him for protection.

Towards the end of summer, Richard obtains a job as an assistant to an insurance agent named Brother Mance. He fills out forms for illiterate blacks on plantations who wish to buy insurance. On his trips to the plantations, Richard is astonished at the ignorance and naivete of the plantation families he meets. The money Richard is able to earn disappears quickly and Brother Mance dies, leaving Richard jobless once again. Richard begins the seventh grade and feels his old hunger once again.

One morning, Richard leans that his grandfather is seriously ill. Grandpa has been wounded in the Civil War and never received his disability pension, something he took with bitterness. For decades, Grandpa would write to the War Department to claim his pension, with no luck. During the days of Grandpa's sickness, the family wrote letters, drew affidavits, and held conferences in an attempt to claim his pension - to no avail. After coming home from school one day, Richard is told to go upstairs and say good-bye to Grandpa. Richard is sent to tell Uncle Tom the news. When he arrives with the news, Uncle Tom shows nothing but anger and Richard realizes that he always seems to provoke hostility in others.

Richard becomes ashamed of his shabby clothing, comparing himself to other boys who begin to wear long-pants suits. Finally desperate to work, he argues with granny until she allows him to work on the Sabbath (with the stipulation that he is going to Hell). Granny and Aunt Addie consider Richard spiritually dead, but his mother approves of his defiance.

Chapter 5 Analysis:

All his life, Richard has been programmed to react with hostility and violence. At school, he finds that he can only gain acceptance among his peers if he is able to fight the other boys. At home, he can defend himself against beatings only by showing the same brutality toward his authority figures. When Uncle Tom is angered by Richard's words, Richard realizes that he does nothing but provoke hostility in others. He has been trained emotionally to regard everyone as his opponent. His violent nature perhaps stems from the lack of compassion shown to him by those who are expected to nurture him: his mother, his relatives, his teachers, and his elders.

In this chapter, Richard experiences for the first time the decision he must make between the value of money versus the value of his moral and social beliefs. The same papers that allow him to buy lunch, to read, and to make money also promote the racist values that Richard is humbled by. Later in Richard's experiences, this tradeoff between social subservience and making money comes into play.

The son of a sharecropper, Richard's job as an assistant to Brother Mance brings him back to "his roots" on the Southern plantations. He feels no ties or kinship to the plantation workers he meets. Their naivete, stupidity, and gullibility strike him as astonishing. His feelings play into his criticisms of the black community. He points out that his race's social subservience stems from their own ignorance. There is no solidarity among blacks, proof given by their willingness to cheat each other just as Brother Mance sells life insurance to plantation workers who are likely never to see a dime of it. Similarly, he holds the plantation workers accountable for their own lack of education.

At school, Richard hears of an available job as a chore boy for a white woman. When she interview him for the job, the woman asks Richard if he steals, which he replies unwittingly with what the woman considers a "sassy" answer. The next morning after his work, the woman leaves Richard breakfast on the table: stale bread and moldy molasses. When he tells the woman he wants to be a writer, she asks: "Who on earth put such ideas into your nigger head?" Richard does not return to the job but instead takes a job with another white family, running errands and serving food.

Tired after work, Richard is unable to keep up his studies. But at midday recess, he is able to buy his own lunch and show off his new clothes. His mother begins to recover and is well enough to attend a Methodist Church, tot he disapproval of Granny. Richard accompanies his mother to church not to gain religion, but to socialize with his classmates. When the church holds a revival, Richard feels pressure to be accepted by the community by "finding God." On the last day of the revival, the congregation sings hymn and the deacon begs mothers to go to their sons and beg for their conversion. Finding religion became a matter of public pride for Richard and his mother, and he consents to baptism.

When summer comes near, Ella suffers another stroke of paralysis. Needing money, Granny and Aunt Addie decide to rent the upstairs to Uncle Tom's family. One day, Uncle Tom asks Richard for the time. When Richard's tone of voice displeases his uncle, Tom threatens to give Richard the whipping of his life. Defiant and horrified, Richard takes two razor blades and threatens to cut his uncle. After an emotional confrontation, Uncle Tom walks away from Richard.

Chapter 6 Analysis:

An integral part of Richard's maturation is learning how to interact with others, including white people. Before his job, Richard has never really been informed about the relationship between whites and blacks. In his childhood, the value placed on one's race was learned second-hand, from his relatives, peers, and elders. When he takes his first job in the home of the white woman, Richard experiences first-hand the prejudices he has only heard or dreamed about. He is treated without respect and without human decency; Richard realizes that because he is black, he is not expected to set goals for himself, to achieve, or to succeed. It may seem that the white woman simply echoes what Richard's relatives have some to believe, but her words are ten times worse because it is an opinion based on speculation and assumption.

Perhaps worst of all, Richard realizes that to survive in the white world, he must be broken of his will. Before his job, Richard had been shielded within the black community. After being scolded and deprecated by the white woman, he learns that whites expect him to be subservient and stupid. Anything else would be considered "sassy." Richard refuses to return to his first job - where the woman served him stale and moldy food - out of pride. But he must learn that he cannot run away from prejudice. The racism he encountered at his first job is prevalent everywhere in the South and Richard must learn to react.

His desire to not conform is tested within the black community as well, with his mother's pressures to be baptized. Wright recalls that his baptism was not a matter of religious belief, but of social pressure and acceptance. The church, he claimed, exploited every relationship: mother-to-son, brother-to-brother, and friend-to-friend. In the end, Richard consents to baptism. But along with the other baptized boys, Richard feels no different than before. It is ironic that his baptism - what is considered a "rebirth" in the eyes of God - leads to Richard's eventual rejection of religion.

Chapter 7 Summary:

The year is 1924 and Richard obtains a job in a brickyard bringing pails of water to the thirsty black laborers. One day, Richard is bit in the thigh by the white boss's dog. Afraid of infection, Richard reports the bite to the supervisor but receives no medical attentions. "A dog bite can't hurt a nigger," replies a white man. Luckily, the swelling passes and he escapes infection.

School opens and Richard's hunger grows. Out of idleness, he composes a short story called "The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre." Although he receives no pay, the story is published in a local black newspaper. When his fellow students read the story, they don't understand Richard's motivation for writing and Richard grows more isolated. His relatives are highly critical, believing the story to be the Devil's work. But Richard's dream of writing continues to grow, despite the educational system in the South and the stifling Jim Crow laws.

Chapter 7 Analysis:

Little by little with his increasing interaction with white people, Richard learns more about their dismissive attitude towards black people. He is treated inhumanely when he is not given medical attention for the dog bite. Whites carry the attitude that black laborers are unsusceptible to anything.

When "The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre" is published, nobody can comprehend Richard's accomplishment. He receives only negative feedback. It is ironic that one of Richard's most meaningful achievements serves only to isolate him more from his environment. Instead of praise, Richard is seen as different. Wright reflects upon the fact that racism and prejudice are products not only of the attitude of whites in the South, but are products of the educational system. Black children are taught in ignorance, given no goals or motivation grow as intellectuals. To Wright, the educational system he grew up in with was corrupted, geared to teach subservience.

Chapter 8 Summary:

It is summer again and Richard inquires of Mrs. Bibbs - his employer - whether her husband has a job opening at the sawmill. The next day, Richard is warned by a black saw mill worker about the dangers of the business, revealing his own hand with three fingers missing. Richard leaves and does not return.

One afternoon, Richard sees Ned Greenley, his classmate, sitting on his porch. He learns that Ned's brother, Bob, has been murdered by some white men. Bob had been a hotel porter and the men had not approved of his activities with a white prostitute. Richard becomes more conscious about the brutality and conduct of the racially oppressed South.

One day after Richard has been talking to his cousin Maggie, he overhears Uncle Tom scolding Maggie for conversing with him. He warns Maggie that Richard is a "dangerous fool" and expects her "to keep away." Richard grows more aware of the isolation between himself and his own family. When Richard's brother, Leon, returns home, he is aware that the family seems to love and approve of Leon more than they do of him.

At the end of the school term, Richard is selected as valedictorian of his class and is asked to present a speech at graduation. When the principal summons him into his office and hands him an already prepared speech, Richard is stunned. He refuses to give the principal's speech, despite pressure from his family and peers. Even Griggs, another boy in school, has decided to recite on of the principal's speeches. But on the day of graduation, Richard does not care. He delivers his speech, dressed in a new suit, and immediately leaves the platform afterwards.

Chapter 8 Analysis:

The murder of Bob Greenley is elevated to myth-like status in the mind of Richard Wright. Because he has never witnessed the racial brutality and misconduct of Southern whites, his fears are elevated the way a small child is afraid of the Boogie Man. But for Richard, the situation is real: he must learn to behave "correctly" for his the sake of his own life. Richard, however, is still strong-willed, evidenced by his refusal to recite the principal's speech.

In this chapter, we also see that Richard's isolation from his family becomes more apparent to him when he accidentally overhears Uncle Tom scolding Maggie. Although his relatives are a constant source of negative feedback, his isolation from his own family can be seen as a source of Richard's strength. At his young age, he has learned out of necessity to be independent and willing to fight.

Chapter 9 Summary:

Anxious to earn money, Richard works as a porter in a clothing store catered toward "Negroes on credit." One morning, he witnesses the boss and his son drag a black woman into the back of the store to rape her. In another incident, Richard is beaten with a whiskey bottle and fists by some white boys whom he forgets to address as "sir." Each day, hatred builds in Richard for the white people. The boss's son even fires Richard for not laughing and talking "like the other niggers."

On day, Richard runs into his old classmate, Griggs, who criticizes him for not learning to get around "white folks." Griggs warns him to think before he speaks, to think before he acts. Griggs reveals that underneath his innocent demeanor, he too hates white people. He also obtains Richard a position as an intern in an optical shop.

The boss of the optical shop, Mr. Crane, is a Yankee and hires Richard immediately. Reynolds and Pease are two white men who work in the shop and cause nothing but trouble for Richard, who truly wishes to learn the trade. Both make degrading racial comments in front of Richard and threaten to kill him for failing to call Pease by "Mister Pease" (even when Richard had not forgotten). Richard leaves the job out of fear. Richard cries on his walk home from work.

Chapter 9 Analysis:

Richard experiences racial violence firsthand when he begins to work in town. Inexperienced in his new environment, Richard finds it difficult to act "properly" the way Griggs acts. Growing up with broken schooling and in the black community, Richard has learned to be self-sufficient and defiant. Even when he tries to conform, he is not subservient enough. Racism is bred by ignorance, and Wright portrays that to survey, a black man must act as ignorant as his white counterpart. A black man must laugh and talk, and act grateful towards a white man; it is not enough to simply be subordinate. Richard must learn to mask his hatred and true feelings to be able to survive.

In the optical shop, we see that Richard's hunger - his yearning of intellect and knowledge - still runs strong. This is why he has the audacity to approach Pease and Reynolds regarding his job. Wright compares Richard to a blind man. The metaphor not only describes the flood of tears that blinds Richard, but how Richard himself is still blind to the Southern oppression. Richard, in spite of his environment, still wishes to learn and set goals for himself.

Chapter 10 Summary:

Richard's next job is that of a helper in a drugstore. But without knowing the right words to say to his white boss, he loses his job soon enough. He grows more conscious of the roles that other Black Boys assume in their jobs. Soon, Richard takes a job as a hall boy at the same hotel where Bob Greenley had worked. At his job, Richard socializes with the other black workers. One night, when walking one of the maids home, the white watchman slaps her on the behind. To avoid confrontation, Richard must obey the watchman and ignore the slap.

Determined to make more money, Richard decides to sacrifice his morals to save more money. He begins to bootleg liquor to sell to white prostitutes in the hotel. Soon, Richard quits his job at the hotel to take a job at the theater in town, where he is involved in a ring for scamming tickets. Richard is a ticket collector, and he saves the tickets to re-sell them at the front counter. Quickly, he amasses enough move money to move out on his own. He does so, promising to send for his mother when he earns enough money.

Chapter 10 Analysis:

Chapter 10 represents a pivotal moment in Richard's life because he realizes that in order to survive the South, he must obey rather than challenge those who suppress him. It is then that he realizes in order to accomplish his goals, he must leave for the North.

Richard comes to realize the social cycle in the relationship between whites and blacks. The black workers that Richard observes fall into stealing and cheating because they feel justified by the poor treatment they receive from their white bosses. In turn, the white bosses feel justified in their racist attitude by black workers who cheat and steal.

In November of 1925, Richard arrives in Memphis, Tennessee ready to live on his own. He walks down Beale Street - a street notorious for its bad reputation - until he sees a large house with a sign that says: "ROOMS." Not knowing whether it is a boarding house or a whorehouse, he is hesitant to enter until a large "mulatto" woman beckons him to come inside. The woman, named Mrs. Moss, lives with her daughter, Bess, in the house and Richard describes the two as the nicest, simplest people he has ever met. They rent the upstairs room to Richard and invite him to eat meals with them. Richard refuses to eat with them, however, because he is uncomfortable with the loving attitude Mrs. Moss shows toward him. She hopes that Richard will marry Bess, and continuously praises everything he does. Bess instantly declares that she loves Richard, fawning over him and combing his hair. Richard is unimpressed by what he calls her "peasant mentality," but he is tempted to take advantage of her. When he tells Bess that he wishes to be friends, she decides that she hates him.

Meanwhile, Richard has found a dishwashing job at a cafe in Memphis. One day on his way to work, Richard encounters another young black man looking for a friend. The two wander down toward the rivers edge and find a bottle of bootlegged liquor. The two sell it to a white man nearby, agreeing to split the five-dollar profit. But when the other boy does not return with the money, Richard realizes that he has been scammed. The chapter ends with the passage: "Last night I had found a nave girl. This morning I had been a naive boy."

Chapter 11 Analysis:

Although Mrs. Moss and Bess express compassion and love toward Richard, he regards them with a kind of contempt. Similar to the plantation slaves that Richard had encountered in his previous job as an insurance agent's assistant, Mrs. Moss and Bess are simple and uneducated, almost to the point of ignorance. Do they realize what is happening in the world around them? From Richard's point of view, the mother and daughter pair seems to be in a world of their own. With a house of their own, they can afford to live comfortably. Wright never portrays Mrs. Moss or Bess as afraid - or even aware - of the racial bias of the South.

In comparing Bess and Richard, we see juxtaposition between innocence and cynicism. Where Bess has grown under the loving guidance of her mother, Richard has been raised in what he portrays as isolation and distrust. Yet Bess, despite the centered home in which she has been raised, does not appear to be any more individualistic or "free" than other Black Boys and girls that Richard encounters.

Chapter 12 Summary:

Remembering his failed attempt at becoming skilled in the optical trade, Richard decides that he will try to break into the trade in Memphis, thinking that Memphis is not a small town like Jackson. While running errands and washing eyeglasses, he learns how to contain the tension he felt in his relations with whites. "The people of Memphis had an air of relative urbanity that took some of the sharpness off the attitude of whites toward Negroes," but there was tension nonetheless. Richard is afraid that Bess has told her mother about their fight. Mrs. Moss questions Richard why he does not like Bess, saying that she only wishes that her daughter would marry somebody like him. Fed up with her pressures, Richard threatens to move out of the house but both Mrs. Moss and Bess beg him to stay.

With more than he ever had before, Richard is able to buy magazines and books from secondhand bookstores. At his job, he would observe the other Black Boys who work around him. This included Shorty, the fat pale-faced, Chinese-looking boy who operated the elevator. He would entertain the white men by allowing them to kick his behind for a quarter. Other men who worked in the building were: an old man named Edison; his son, John; Dave, the night janitor. They discuss the rules of the whites with a sense of hatred, but accepted their boundaries because they realize the importance of money.

While delivering a pair of glasses to a department store, the counter clerk - a Yankee - asks Richard if he is hungry. Uncomfortable and paranoid, Richard refuses to talk to him, answering the man's questions with lies. Richard even refuses to take the dollar that the man hands to him. What bothers him is that the man knew how he really felt, how hungry he was; Richard feels that the safety of his own life depends upon how well he is able conceal his true feelings from all whites.

One day, Richards foreman - a young white man named Mr. Olin - informs him that another Black Boy named Harrison is going to kill Richard for calling him a dirty name. Harrison worked across the street for a rival optical house, but Richard had only known him casually and never had trouble with him before. When Harrison and Richard confront each other, they find that Mr. Olin is playing a dirty trick by telling each boy that the other is planning to kill him. The stories escalate each day, and Mr. Olin encourages Richard to use a knife to defend himself against Harrison. For a week, the white men egg the two Black Boys to fight each other. Finally, they ask the boys to have a boxing match for five dollars each. Harrison convinces Richard to fight four rounds. In the ring, the two fight harder and harder, despite feeling ashamed and trapper against their will. In fighting Harrison, Richard feels he has done something unclean and wrong.

Chapter 12 Analysis:

To Richard, Shorty's behavior is disgusting. In this chapter, we see Richard examining the roles and actions of those around him. But rather than following the lead of others, Richard is appalled at how other are willing to degrade themselves and their dignities to make money. When the white men try to organize a fight between Harrison and Richard, they treat the boys more like dogs than people. This relates back to the incident where Richard is bitten by a dog and receives no medical attention: the black workers are treated as savages rather than human beings.

In his experience with white men, Richard has become conditioned to shield himself from any white person with whom he comes into contact with. When the stranger offers him a dollar, he is more shocked than grateful because he realizes that the man sees beyond the superficial facade Richard usually dons in his interaction with other whites. We see that Richard is truly isolated - emotionally and intellectually - from those around him, and isolation is what comforts him. The fact that another person can see his true feelings is a sign of weakness to Richard.

Chapter 13 Summary:

Reading the paper one morning, Richard reads an editorial denouncing H.L. Mencken. Curious as to what Mencken wrote to deserve the "scorn of the South," he goes to an Irish-Catholic man named Mr. Falk. Falk lend Richard his library card, and Richard is able to check out any book that he wishes to read. After reading Mencken's A Book of Prefaces, Richard yearns to know more about the authors he alludes to: Conrad, Lewis, Dostoyevski, Flaubert, and more. Richard sits up in his room, eating out of cans while reading great literary works and feeding his hunger.

That winter, Richards mother and brother move down to live with him. His brother obtains a job and the two decide to start saving to move North. Richard tells none of the white men on his job of his plans to move, knowing it would put him in danger. Richard tries to think of a way to live and refuses to stay in the south, to submit and be a slave, to forget what he had read. But his reading makes him conscious of himself and his environment and he wonders how much longer he will have to stay in the South.

Chapter 13 Analysis:

A turning point in Richard's growth and maturation is when he discovers the power of words - a discovery that changes his entire outlook on his own life and those around him. Whereas his hunger had previously consumed him, Richard finally begins to satiate his thirst for knowledge through his reading. What is shocking, however, is that this knowledge would have been denied Richard because of his color. Wright may consider education an integral part of freeing oneself, but only those with privileges are offered the opportunity to actually receive an education.

Richard learns from his reading more than any of his years in formal schooling had ever taught him. Although his reading isolates even more from those around him and the black community, he develops a profound understanding of himself and his environment.

Chapter 14 Summary:

Aunt Maggie's husband has deserted her and she visits the family in Memphis. He visit formed a practical basis for Richards plan to move north. It was decided that Aunt Maggie and Richard would go North first, and Richard told his boss and white co-workers that he was being forced to take his paralyzed mother to Chicago. The white men warn him not to change, that the north is no place for a black man. Shorty tells Richard that he is lucky, recounting his won fate of staying in the South forever until he dies or the whites kill him. Wright recalls: "This was the culture from which I sprang. This was the terror from which I fled."

In a northbound train, Richard tries to reflect on the various forces that led him up to that point. He recalls his isolation from the Southern environment, saying that the only thing that had managed to keep him alive were the books he read. But he realizes that he can never leave the South behind emotionally because the South had raised him. The novel ends with Richard heading North: "With ever watchful eyes and bearing scars, I headed North, full of a hazy notion that life could be lived with dignity, and that the personalities of others should not be violated, that men should be able to confront other men without fear or shame, and that if men were lucky in their living on earth they might win some redeeming meaning for their having struggled and suffered here beneath the stars."

Chapter 14 Analysis:

There is an interesting comparison between Shorty and Richard. On one hand, Shorty is the white man's clown. He has adapted his own personality and behavior to feed off the perceptions of the average black man: stupid, ignorant, and foolish. Richard has always been defiant, perhaps because he is too hot-tempered or perhaps because he knows his own self-worth. Shorty knows that he will die or be killed in the South, that he can never escape the South. Richard attempts to flee to the North and escape the prejudice he has encountered. But in some ways, Shorty and Richard are the same: they have grown up knowing what it means to suffer. And where both of the boys have been surrounded in the same environment, only one - Richard - has the strength to overcome his obstacles.

In the end of Part I, we see that Richard has struggled to survive on his own. He does not follow in the footsteps of those before by becoming a slave, subservient, or learning to deal with the Southern attitudes. Rather, he flees to discover for himself a world beyond what he already knows. Part I ends with Richard's move from the South because, as we have seen throughout the novel, the South is where Wright was shaped as a writer and a man. In some ways, the ending of Part I of Black Boy is more like a beginning of a new life for Richard and the end of the life that Wright had previously known.

On first arriving in Chicago with Aunt Maggie, Richard is taken about by the city-life and its new social codes. On the streetcar, a white man sits down next to him without thinking about Richard's color. The next day, Richard finds a job as a porter in a delicatessen owned by a Jewish couples: Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman. After working for short time, Richard hears of a job opening for a postal clerk. The job required him to take an examination on the following Monday, and Richard is unsure of how to approach his bosses to ask for a day off. Instead, he simply skips a day of work and lies to the Hoffman, claiming that his mother had died in Memphis. The Hoffmans know he is lying and are aware that Richard is used to living in the South. But Richard eventually leaves his job with them because he cannot stand their pity.

After a week, Richard obtains a job as a dishwasher in a North Side café that had just opened, where several white waitresses worked. One day of the white girls accidentally bumps against Richard and in another incident, he is asked to tie another waitress's apron for her. He realizes that these girls are not conscious of black and white.

Richard observes that even in Chicago, his actions are tuned by the social lessons he has learned in the South. After reading a magazine called American Mercury, the boss lady enters the kitchen and asks him where he found it and if he understood it. Richard lies, saying he "found" it instead of saying that he had purchased it. Thereafter, he keeps his books and magazines wrapped in newspaper so that no one would question him.

One day, when walking buy the kitchen stove in the café, Richard notices that Tillie ­ the Finnish cook ­ had spit into a pot of boiling soup. Afraid that the boss will not believe him, he instead tells another black girl who works at the café. At first the girl is in disbelief, but she spies on the cook herself. Both are afraid that the boss lady will not believe them. At first, the boss tells the girl that she is crazy. But after she spies on Tillie, who proceeds to spit in the food, she fires the cook.

In June, Richard is called in for temporary duty in the post office. But in order to have a permanent appointment, he must pass a physical examination where the weight requirement is 125 lbs. No matter how much he eats, he is unable to gain weight. Richard is forced to look for another job. Meanwhile, his mother and brother come to live in Aunt Maggie's apartment. Aunt Maggie constantly criticizes Richard's reading and studying, and after he loses his postal job, she regards him as a failure. So Richard decides to invite his Aunt Cleo to share an apartment with himself, his mother, and his brother. At night, he reads books and tries to satisfy his hunger for insight on his won life and the lives around him.

Chapter 15 Analysis:

Part II begins with Richard's arrival in Chicago. Wright separates Black Boy into two parts particularly to emphasize a transition in lifestyle and age. First, dividing the autobiographical novel reflects the theme of duality between the North and the South. Throughout his childhood, Richard has been exposed to what he describes as the brutal environment created by the South. The title of Part I ­ Southern Night ­ insinuates the violent and dark tone of Richard's childhood. The North, however, has represented opportunity and freedom for Richard. Second, Part II represents a change in the narrative style of Black Boy. Rather than simply recalling events, Wright appears more analytical. Part II is comprised of may instances where Wright will make use of parentheses to inject a personal sidenote or analysis of the event being described. Similarly, Wright will present interesting juxtapositions between events that happen in Chicago with events from his childhood in the South.

In Chicago, Richard must learn to adapt to a new environment, where "color hate" is less prominent and racial boundaries do not control him. When he takes a job under the Hoffmans, he lies to them and leaves his job because he still feels he must abide by Southern social rules that are applied to blacks. Richard says that he lies to cover his own insecurity; his insecurity stems from his inability to comprehend any social interaction with whites beyond the brutal and hateful relationships he has witnessed in the South.

The title of Part II ­ The Horror and the Glory ­ can be interpreted as a reflection of the environment of the North. Whereas Richard is finally able to see instances where people are not blinded by race, he is presented with other problems. In the chapter to some, Richard must learn that prejudices are easily adopted. He is subject to mistreatment because of his education, his intellect, his socioeconomic background, as well as his political stance. Again, the juxtaposition of the North and the South brings out the question on which is worse, according to Wright: the open brutality of the South or the hidden and horrifying prejudices of the North.

Chapter 16 Summary:

Richard is finally able to obtain a night job as a postal clerk after forcing himself to eat; the increased pay allowed them to move into a larger apartment and buy better food. During the day, he experiments with stream-of-conscious writing and attempts to understand the "many modes of Negro behavior" through his writing. Richard also befriends an Irish young man with whom he has a lot in common with, sharing their cynicism and beliefs.

Richard also begins to examine several black groups. He meets a black literary group on Chicago's South Side and finds them almost bohemian and too absorbed with sex. Richard also meets a group called the "Garveyites," an organization of black men and women who seek to return to Africa. Richard observes their passionate "rejection of America," an emotion that he shares. But despite their similar emotional dynamic, Richard pities them because they are unable to see that Africa is really not their home. He views the Garveyites as naïve for not realizing that Africa is under European imperialism, and that they have already merged too much with the West to return to native Africa.

Meanwhile, Richard also begins to hear of the Communist Party's activities, but pays no heed. When the 1929 stock crash occurs, his pay decreases and there are no positions open for a regular clerk. He loses his job at the post office, but is rehired the following summer for temporary work. Aunt Cleo suffers from a cardiac condition, his mother becomes ill, and his brother develops stomach ulcers. A distant cousin offers Richard a job selling insurance, which he accepts. During the year, Richard works for burial and insurance societies catered toward blacks. His job allows him, for the first time, to explore the lives of black people in Chicago. Most policyholders were illiterate and poor; like many other salesmen, Richard also accepts sexual favors from women who are unable to make regular insurance payments. He has a long affair with a young woman obsessed with seeing the circus. The only relationships she had were sexual and Richard observes that her intelligence is simple and limited. Not only did the insurance agents view women as property, but they participated in swindles that would cheat illiterate policy owners out of money by switching policy deeds. Wright writes: "I was in and out of many Negro homes each day and I knew that the Negroes were lost, ignorant, sick in mind and body."

Richard begins to visit the Washington Park after collecting his premiums in the afternoon, where many unemployed black people gather to listen to Communist speakers. He is baffled and angered by the black Communist movement, noticing that in appearance, speech, and mannerisms they attempt to copy from white Communists. Richard criticizes the fact that the speakers adopt from the styles of black preachers and tend to over-dramatize the militancy of the masses. Wright questions the understanding of the Communists as well as the abilities of black men and women to solve their social problems.

When election time came around, Richard takes a small job rounding votes for a black Republican precinct captain. On election day, he stands in the polling booth and realizes the corruption of the entire political process. On the face of his ballots, he scribbles: "I Protest This Fraud." Meanwhile, the depression grows worse and Richard is forced to move his family into a small dingy rented apartment. One morning, his mother tells him there is no food for breakfast, and he must go to the Cook County Bureau of Public Welfare to beg for bread.

Chapter 16 Analysis:

In Part II, we see that Richard begins to assess his social isolation rather than simply accept it. We see that his isolation follows him into manhood; just as he found no comradery among other black children as a boy, Richard is unable to fit in to any black political or social group. He considers himself more similar to his Irish postal worker friend than to the members of the Garveyites or the Negro literary group. This isolation from these black political communities falls into Wright's criticism of his own race. Throughout Black Boy, Wright questions whether the black community is educated enough and strong enough to unify themselves and overcome racial barriers and oppression. Here, he conveys a tone of disappointment because he doubts whether the majority of the black community possesses enough insight regarding their social situation. To him, the Garveyites are naïve in their wish to return to Africa. To him, the Negro literary group are passionless and twisted, and he even refers to them as "boys and girls" as if to emphasize their immaturity. But when Wright writes that he "caught a glimpse of the potential strength of the American Negro," he shows that he has not lost all hope yet.

But Richard seems to be constantly discouraged by the black culture that exists in his environment. As in his childhood, he acts as an insurance agent selling policies to illiterate black families, men, and women. Like the plantation families of the South, he regards the people he encounters in Chicago as simpletons. The young woman obsessed with the circus is portrayed as childish and almost stupid. It is ironic that Wright puts special meaning in her want to see the "animals" in the circus, for he treats the black community almost like a circus. He observes them like animals that exhibit only the basic emotions. For instance, he portrays the young black girl with whom he has an affair as simple, stupid, and only capable of sexual relations ­ similar to the way in which animals eat, sleep, and procreate.

Richard's first impression of the Communist movement is one that will characterize his later relationship with the party. He views their propaganda and tactics as embellished lies and impossible promises. His comparison between the Communist speaker and the black preacher is important particularly because throughout Black Boy, Wright seems to denounce any kind of religion. This comparison suggests that, like the church, Communism is nothing but blind faith. He blatantly questions the success of the Communist Party, asking if "the NegroŠ could possibly cast off his fear and corruption and rise to the task." By the word "task," Wright means overcoming racial oppression and achieving unity.

Richard's gesture, writing "I Protest This Fraud" on his voting ballot, reflects his undaunting will. But it is ironic that his gesture of protest is so small. He even says that his action was "futile" and nothing but a "determined scrawl" across his ballot. So, despite Richard's desire to rise and overcome, the reader should question whether Richard is as strong-willed as he thinks he is.

Chapter 17 Summary:

At the welfare station, Richard is embarrassed at first, but becomes aware of the bonding experience that is happening around him: individuals sharing their experiences, unifying themselves. He leaves the relief station with a new kind of hope: the possibility that a new understanding of life could be given to those he had met at the relief station. Richard sheds some of his cynicism with a want to understand the common black man.

Christmas comes and Richard works at the post office temporarily, where he again talks to his Irish friend about current events. When his postal job ends, he seeks employment in a medical research institute at one of the largest and wealthiest hospitals in Chicago. He is immediately aware of the racial division set by the hospital authorities. Along with three other black men, Richard is restricted to the basement corridors (as to not mingle with the white workers) and cleans operating rooms and the animal cages. A boy Richard's age, named Bill, worked with him at the hospital and was usually sleepy or drunk. Richard is amazed and shocked by Bill's extremely simple and brutalized mind. The two other black workers were older and had been employed at the institute for a longer period of time: Brand and Cooke. Unlike the others, Richard takes an interest in what the doctors are doing. One day, one of the doctors leaves a bottle of Nembutal ­ an anesthetic ­ out. Curious, Richard opens the bottle and smells it. Brand pretends that the Nembutal is poisonous and scares Richard by telling him to run or he'll fall dead. Once, the authorities send a young Jewish boy to time Richard as he cleans a room. After timing him, the boys calculates how long it will take Richard to clean all the rooms and five flights of steps. From then on, Richard feels like a slave, trying to work against time.

At the hospital, Brand and Cooke do nothing but feud with each other. One day, the two begin to argue over what year the last coldest day in Chicago was. Cooke pulls a long knife from his pocket and Brand seizes an ice pick to defend himself. The two ensure in a physical battle and although no one is hurt, the animal cages topple over, letting dogs, mice, guinea pigs and rats run loose everywhere. The four black workers spend the rest of their lunch break trying to sort the animals out, randomly placing mice and rats in their cages, not knowing whether they were the cancerous rats or the ones injected with tuberculosis. None of the doctors notice that anything is wrong and neither of the workers tells the director about the disaster. Richard notes that because of the way in which the black workers are treated, they learn to form their own code of ethics, values, and loyalty.

Chapter 17 Analysis:

Again in Chapter 17, we see that Richard and his family are still plagued by hunger. With the depression in full swing, we also see that hunger plagues the entire community. But for Richard, the hunger again manifests itself in a hunger for knowledge, not just food. In the medical institute, Richard longs for the education that he sees other white young men receiving. Instead, his questions are ignored and the doctor even replies that Richard's "brains might explode" should he "know too much." Even in Chicago, he is still being denied access to education.

Richard also begins to sense that he is not alone in his plight and poverty. At the relief station, he begins to see that there is an entire society that has been rejected by society itself or as Richard puts it, he is "not alone in [his] loneliness." There is a strength in numbers that Richard begins to realize. This comes into play when the black workers are trying to fix the mess they make in the medial institute; Richard realizes that within the black community ­ among his fellow workers ­ there existed a separate moral code.

One Thursday night, Richard is invited to join a group of white boys whom he met at the post office to talk about politics, argue, eat and drink. Many of the boys have joined the Communist Party, and one day a boy named Sol announces that one of his short stories is going to be published in a Communist journal. Sol, a member of the John Reed Club ­ a Communist literary organization ­ tries to convince Richard to attend one of their meetings. Richard is doubtful whether the Community Party has any sincere interest in the black community, but finally attends one of the Chicago John Reed Club meetings out of boredom. He is given a handful of Communist magazines and is encouraged to participate in Left Front, one of their journals. Richard decides that he will try to humanize Communism to the common man through his writing, and composes a few verses that are accepted by some of the Communist publications.

Richard begins to attend more of the meetings, and he realizes that the club has factional disputes, or fights between club members. The disputes are between the writers (those who are mainly in charge of Left Front) and the painters. Richard is elected as executive secretary to satisfy both of the groups. He tries to satisfy everybody on top of trying to keep Left Front published, though the Communist Party members think that the publication is useless.

One day, a young Jewish man who introduces himself as Comrade Young attends one of the Chicago meetings, stating that he has just moved from Detroit. Without money, Young asks Richard if he can use the John Reed Club headquarters for lodging. Thinking that Young is sincere and loyal, Richard agrees. Young impresses the best painters in the club with his artwork and becomes admired by all. Richard tries to contact the Detroit chapter to ask for information of Young, but he gets no reply. At one meeting, Young accuses Swann ­ one of the club's best young artists ­ of being a traitor to the workers. Chaos and verbal battles ensue within the club until Comrade Young disappears mysteriously. One afternoon, Richard and Comrade Grimm search the luggage that Young left behind at the club. They find a Detroit address, to which Richard writes and asks for news about Young. A few days later, he receives a reply from a mental institution saying that Young had previously escaped but was apprehended and back in custody. All charges against Swann were dropped and Richard, along with some other trusted members of the club, keeps the information about Young a secret from the others.

Chapter 18 Analysis:

In the previous chapter, we see that Richard loses some of his cynicism and gains a little hope that the black community can unite to overcome their obstacles. His hope becomes manifested in his involvement with the Communist Party. Although the ideals of the Communist Party appeal to Richard, he is somewhat naïve when he places his faith in a political institution. Richard believes that he can single-handedly unify the political and cultural needs of black society through his words. But he seems to be underqualified to act as an executive secretary.

The incident with Comrade Young shows that Richard is still scared to speak his mind, one reason why he fails to question Young about his past in Detroit. In fact, Young's own hinting that he is involved with the Central Committee is enough to cause most of the club members to not question his presence. We see that even within the organization, there exists paranoia, anxiety, and factional disputes. How does an organization that is inherently unstable strive to unify society at large?

Chapter 19 Summary:

Now a full-fledged member of the Communist Party, Richard attends a secret unit ­ the party's basic form of organization ­ meeting and proposes his idea to write a book of biographical sketches of black Communists. The members, despite Richard's background, label him an "intellectual" because of hi proper speech and dress. Richard also learns that the unit does not approve of him reading materials outside of Party literature, claiming that other literature is bourgeois, or not for the masses. Richard begins to fear their militant ignorance.

Richard begins to interview Ross, a communist who had been charged with "inciting to riot," for his biographical book. But he begins to receive threats from party leaders with messages such as: "Intellectuals don't fit well into the party, Wright." One morning in Ross's home, a black Communist named Ed Green arrives and begins to question Richard. Green is a member of the Party's Central Committee ­ a man with power ­ and is suspicious of Richard's work. As days pass, Ross begins to speak less and less to Richard. Soon afterward, Ross is charged with anti-leadership tendencies. Richard drops his idea of making a book of biographical sketches and instead, uses his material from Ross to write short stories.

Thereafter, the Party leaders decide to disband all clubs and assign writers to composing party pamphlets and other propaganda. Richard begins to tear himself away from the party. Buddy Nealson, a member of the Communist International, is sent to Chicago to take over the black Communist movement. Nealson launches a campaign to rid the party of all "Negro Trotskyite elements," in other words, to rid the club of traitors to the party. In 1935, Richard attends a party conference in New York. In New York, the conference organizers are unable to find Richard a room to stay in because he is black. Dejected, Richard is defeated in the vote to maintain clubs and the John Reed Clubs are officially dissolved.

Free of party relations, Richard turns to his writing. He becomes aware that Buddy Nealson has accused him of being a party degenerate and a traitor. One day, Ed Green stops by to tell Richard that Buddy Nealson wishes to speak to him. When Richard goes to a meeting with Nealson, Nealson tries to recruit Richard back into the party to win the fight against Fascists. He orders Richard to organize a committee against the high cost of living. Though he wants to, Richard cannot bring himself to quit. He accepts the task.

One day, he is called to another meeting with Nealson and one of his friends, named Smith. Smith wishes to send Richard on a task in Switzerland, but Richard refuses to go. At the next unit meeting, Richard officially resigns from the party. The party shuns Richard and he is accused of being involved in a Trotskyite group. He is transferred from his work at the South Side Boys' Club to work in the Federal Negro Theatre as a publicity agent. Working with a talented Jewish director named Charles DeSheim, Richard sees that the theater's talents are going to waste and sets himself on producing a series of one-act plays about Negro life. But the actors picket, forcing DeSheim and Richard to accept their papers and leave the theater.

Transferred to white experimentalist theater as a publicity agent, Richard vows to keep his mouth shut, steer clear of black theater, and avoid and party members. One evening, a group of black communists invite Richard to attend a Sunday meeting, where Ross will be on trial for being a traitor. Richard attends the trial out of curiosity. After being charged with the crimes, Ross breaks down and says he is guilty while asking the party for forgiveness. Richard finds his submission amazing and feels that the entire party has become blind by corruption. He leaves the trial. Afterwards, only one party member named Harold has the courage to speak to Richard.

Chapter 19 Analysis:

Richard is fully entrenched in the Communist Party, fastened by the idea that he will be able to humanize the goals of the Communist movement by injecting their cause with black culture. However, it is ironic that the other party members consider Richard an intellectual and shun him because of his status. Richard joins the party because they are blind to race, but he does not consider that they are biased toward other socioeconomic factors, such as education. To Wright, this is astounding that they can label someone who has grown up in poverty as bourgeois. Their ignorance toward Richard's background serves to isolate him from the party and the Communist vision.

Even within the Communist Party, though, racism still exists. When Richard is unable to find a room at the conference in New York, he realizes it is because he is black. At that point, even Richard's notion that the Communist party has achieved his goal of racial unity is broken.

In Chapter 19, Wright juxtaposes himself with Ross, the party member accused of anti-leadership behavior and inciting to riot. Both Ross and Wright are accused of being traitors to the party, but Ross is placed on trial and is somehow "broken" in spirit. We see that Richard is able to maintain his strong will, despite his inability to stand his ground within the party. Why does Ross break down? One reason is Richard's already growing isolation from the party and the black community. Whereas Ross is dependent on his peers for social and emotional support, Richard is able to survive on his own and in loneliness ­ the way he has done for almost his entire life.

Chapter 20 Summary:

Richard was transferred from the Federal Experimental Theater to the Federal Writers' Project, writing guidebooks. Many of his co-workers are Communist members, but they are not allowed to speak to him because he has been deemed a traitor. One day the project administrator calls Richard into the office and informs him that several of his co-workers are trying to drive Richard away from his job. Richard learns that his dismissal from the theater project was also related to his relations with the party. His boss refuses to dismiss Richard based on politics. Meanwhile, Richard's co-workers call him profane names.

Richard decides to end everything by making an appointment with the head of the local Communist Party. But instead, he is only able to make an appointment with the secretary's secretary, a girl named Alma Zetkin. Zetkin says almost nothing to Richard and he leaves without accomplishing anything.

On May Day of 1936, the union votes that everybody should march in the procession. Following printed instructions of where to meet his correct group for the parade, Richard learns that he is 15 minutes late and is instructed to fall in anywhere. Richard is invited by a black communist ­ an old party friend ­ to march with the South Side Communist Section. When he is seen by Cy Perry ­ a white Communist ­ he is instructed to fall out of their ranks and leave the parade. Asking his black friend to speak up, Richard receives no support and is physically thrown out of the parade. From that day forth, Richard decides to fight back using words, fight back through his writing.

Chapter 20 Analysis:

Richard finally realizes the limitations of the Communist Party and their ignorance toward his own motivations. His final interaction with the Communist members of the South Side section pushes him over the edge because it not only combines their political ignorance but racial ignorance. Richard feels that Communism has distorted the racial issue facing the black community, and when his friend fails to speak back to Cy Perry, he sees it as akin to the racism he encountered in the South. Again, Richard's isolation is brought out. The May Day parade is a final turning point where Richard realizes that he may always be alone in his ideas and beliefs.

The novel ends when Richard finally realizes the incredible power that his words will eventually have. He decides that he will use his words as weapons, appealing to the humanistic and emotional qualities in man and society.

Despite the violent and depressing images presented in Black Boy, we see that Wright himself has shed his cynicism, ending with a note of hope. The song he quotes ("Arise, you wretched of the earthŠ a better world's in birth") expresses his new profound belief that eventually, society will rise above its ills and prejudices. Wright even shows his optimism by shedding the images of childhood and of the brutal South: "The days of my youth, were receding from me like a rolling tide, leaving me alone upon high, dry ground, leaving me with a quieter and deeper consciousness."

• Biography of Richard Wright
• About Black Boy
• Character List
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Part I, Chapters 1-5
• Summary and Analysis of Part I, Chapters 6-10
• Summary and Analysis of Part I, Chapters 11-14
• Summary and Analysis of Part II, Chapters 15-17
• Summary and Analysis of Part II, Chapters 18-20
• Related Links on Black Boy
• Author of ClassicNote and Sources
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• Test Yourself! Quiz 1
• Test Yourself! Quiz 2
• Essays on Black Boy
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