Richard Wright

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twisting my empty guts until they ached.
I would grow dizzy and my vision would dim."

In Black Boy, Wright used his own life to exemplify what qualities of
imagination and intellect are necessary of a southern African-American in
order to understand the meaning of his life in the United States. Black
Boy also reveals it's 'author hero' as a man controlled by an absolute
certainty of his own virtues.

The ethics of living Jim Crow require that Wright be obedient and
silent. So although he was not a slave, he in essence was. He shared the
same emotions as the slaves and emphasized for them. Yet everything we
know about his character has prepared us to expect rebellion.

Wright could not, from his earliest years, tolerate this repression,
and Black Boy is the chronicle of his segregation, not only from the white
society but from with his own society.

While Black Boy represents a picture of a personality corrupted by a
brutal environment, it also presents natural ...

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