Richard Wright’s ‘Jim Crow’ and ‘Black Boy’: A critical analysis

Abstract

Richard Wright [5, 11] is a writer of rebellious protest. He never showed any laxity in his fight against racism. Words were for him the ultimate weapon in his fight. In his ‘The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch’, he recounts his experiences of White racism. He describes powerfully as well as vividly situations in which Jim Crow laws humiliated the black man and made him suffer just for being black. The segregationist policy and prejudices of Southern Whites had made the life of blacks utterly miserable. As about Wright’s ‘Black Boy: A Record of Childhood of Youth’, the effects of the same anecdotes is diluted by the narrative style Richard Wright. ‘Black Boy’ is really a story of a man set apart from the white race by intellect and sensitivity. At the same time, this man barred forever from the white race by the colour of his skin. Wright here is representative of all blacks.