Black
Boy
– Discussion Questions
Directions:For
each of the following discussion items please find support for your responses
from Black Boy.
1.One
critic claims:“All of us can learn
from the life story of Richard Wright.It
is, on the one hand, a success story, the story of a man who achieved greatness
in the face of almost insuperable obstacles.But
it is also a story that illustrates that the wounds of youth can never
be fully healed.”
Respond
to this claim.In your response consider
how Black Boy is similar to and is different from Ragged Dick
as a “success story.”How does the
theme of “self creation” develop in Black Boy?
2.Among
the titles that Wright considered for this autobiographical novel was American
Hunger.This probably would
have been an appropriate title as hunger seems to be the most compelling
force in Wright’s life.Or is it
fear?Or is it freedom?Or
is it violence?Or is it love of
knowledge?Or is it his desire to
flee the South and become a writer?How
do you respond to the images in the book that deal with these issues?How
do Wright’s choices, decisions, and actions allow him to overcome the nearly
insurmountable trials he faces?
3.Does
it bother you at all to know that many of Wright’s “facts” in Black
Boy are fabrications or misrepresentations?For
example, Wright does not mention that his mother was a successful school
teacher and that many of his friends were children of college faculty members.He
omits most of his father’s family background, and his own sexual experiences.Reactions
from sensitive Southern whites are mainly left out, including those of
a family that served as a second home and provided him with more understanding
than his own family.
Wright
never referred to Black Boy as an autobiography, and indeed the
narrator is a composite of many characters in Wright’s boyhood.Wright
claims he meant the work to be collective autobiography, a personalized
record of countless black Americans growing up with a personal history
of hunger, deprivation, and constant racism.Nevertheless,
the story is largely Richard Wright’s narrative.And
so what do you make of this “lying” motif that appears in the work?What
are the various forms and functions of deception in the story?
4.Who
is Richard Wright’s audience?How
do you respond emotionally and intellectually to his story?
5.James
Baldwin, another prominent African-American writer, criticized Wright for
the belief that “in Negro life there exists no tradition, no field of manners,
no possibility of ritual or intercourse.”You
will have to admit that Wright’s description of the African-American culture
is essentially bleak:the family,
the religion, the education, the women, the work are represented negatively.Why
does Wright say that there was an absence of real kindness in Negroes…
“how unstable was our tenderness, how lacking in genuine passion we were,
how void of great hope, how timid our joy, how bare our traditions, how
hollow our memories, how lacking we were in those intangible sentiments
that bind man to man, and how shallow was even our despair” (37).Do
you agree with Baldwin’s criticism?Can
you justify Wright’s style from a literary, psychological, or political
point of view?
6.Wright
has been described by various critics as a naturalist, an existentialist,
and a social determinist.Do a bit
of research of these terms and decide how Wright does indeed fit in each
category.
7.Choose
any passage, paragraph, description, or event that especially impressed
you (for whatever reason).Discuss
with the class why the words moved you.
8.One
criticism we had of Ragged Dick and Little Women was that
they are “period pieces.”Is Black
Boy also a cultural artifact?Does
it in any way reflect African-American concerns or Caucasian concerns as
we begin the 21st century?