The Man Who Killed A Shadow
In the short story "The Man Who Killed A Shadow," by Richard Wright the main character, Saul, shows his feeling of being powerless towards the white shadow. This fear of the white shadow overcomes him in the end and this makes him give up. Saul became unable to connect with people because of the early deaths of his parents. From this time to come, his life was unstable and this causes him to disassociate with all people. "People really never became personalities to Saul, for hardly had he ever got to know them before they vanished (194)." Saul never connected with anyone and he never got too close to anyone because he moved around frequently. This instability set in motion the events that would lead to the fear of his shadows. Since Saul has been born into a black society, he already knows he has no possibility to get anywhere in life. "...he came into a world that was split in two, a white world and a black one, the white one being separated from the black by a million psychological miles (193)." All the white people were shadows that he feared. This phobia holds him back from being his ideal self, wh
His reaction to the white woman shows that he has felt threatened by the shadows for a long time and was not able to handle his fear any longer. His anxiety of the shadows finally made him blow up and overreact to her screaming and this shows he has given in to his fear. Even though Saul will be punished for his crime he will be better and that is all that matters to him. His whole life he just drank away his fears to forget them, but they only worsened. Finally, Saul did not fear the shadows anymore. Since he has been caught for murder, he will not have to fight his shadows or be scared anymore. " Saul is stating that he felt he could only be himself by being under the influence of alcohol. This is because a white woman's word is the absolute truth against a black man. I feel he thinks he has conquered his fear by actually killing one of them. Eventually Saul lets his shadows overpower him by killing one of them. " This is his resp!onse to the drippings of blood on the floor, which is from dragging the beaten and killed woman. Saul's situation was one that no matter what he did he would have been killed anyway. "When Saul was sober, he almost never laughed in the presence of the white shadow-world, but when he had a drink or two he found that he could (196). He thought he was solving his tremendous anxiety, but was simply covering them up.
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