Richard Wright wrote the book Black Boy (American Hunger) A Record of
Childhood and Youth, which was banned from his homestate of Mississippi for a few years
after its release. It is an autobiographical book telling about Richard's young childhood to
young adulthood years. Richard was a boy who wanted to be a writer all of his life. He
moved very frequently, and his mother had to take care of him without the support of his
father. She was often sick, suffering from many paralytic strokes. Shorty was a fictional
character used by Wright to show how the worst of the blacks acted. He was the elevator
man at the building in which Richard worked. He would let people do whatever they
wanted to do to him as long as he could get a quarter out of it. Grandpa was a former
slave who fought in the civil war. He sent in for his pension for fighting, but he never was
able to get it. This was due to his inability to be able to read and write well. Richard
Wright proves his theme of "emancipation through education" from the actions of himself,
Richard Wright is a prime example of "emancipation through education". Richard
was able to escape the South by becoming very successful in school. If he would have
dropped-out of high school, he wouldn't have been so successful. He is an example of
how one person can still become very successful despite handicaps such as being poor, not
knowing many others who are smart, and being surrounded by unsuccessful people.
Richard's refusal to go against his beliefs aided him in escaping the South. For example,
all his life people were telling him that he would never become a writer, but he still refused
to be taken-down. If he would have listened to them, he would have stayed in the South,
and would have never have made it through high school. Richard was a successful person
because he was able to leave the South, unlike S...