Big Black Good Man Analysis

For my final essay I have decided to pick “Big Black Good Man” by Richard Wright. What first drove me to this short story was the title, and the year it was published. Being that it was written in 1958 and the gloom of blacks and whites past still hanging over them heavily; this is what ultimately attracted me to this short story. “Big Black Good Man” has two main characters, Olaf, and Jim (big black man). Olaf is just about to take a nap when a big black man walks into the hotel wanting a hotel room. Olaf is quick to make judgment about the man and questions himself whether he should give this man a room or not. Jim's appearance frightened Olaf. He ultimately decides to give the man a room. As soon as olaf gives him a room, Jim hand him a

He asks for the same thing for the next few nights. As the man was about to check out, he walks up to Olaf and lightly wraps his hands around his neck. Olaf feared for his life, not knowing what to expect. A year passes and just as Olaf thinks he never has to see the black man again, there he comes walking through the door. He quickly tells him that there are no rooms available. The man replies that he isn't there for a room. He walks up to Olaf, wraps his hands around his neck and claims that it is a perfect fit. He turns to him and hands him six nylon shirts, thanking him for everything he has done. Olaf tells him that he was fearful of his life, and thought that he wanted to kill him. He looks at him in shock and wonders why he ever thought that. Olaf says “you are a big black good man”. During this essay the topics that will be discussed are as followed, how Olaf dealt with the situation at hand, what literary devices are used in the story to help the reader understand the unfortunate situation the character is in, is the life experience of the characters similar to the life experience people find themselves in today and finally can the situation be dealt with in the same manner

We know that Olaf is not a racist, as mentioned by Richard Wright. The way I view these situations are as two seperate ones, being that there were two separate occasions on when both Olaf and Jim had come face to face with one another. We may know that Olaf is not a racist on the outside, but we do know that he sure thinks it. The part where this comes in to play is when Olaf has a dream of Jim drowning and being “eaten by a shark, a white one”. Olaf thinks of Jim as something less than a human. The two situations faced by Olaf could have been dealt with a lot more commonly if his preconceived notions of a big strong black man didn't get to his mind first. Being that jim was a big tall strong looking black man and Olaf was a small elderly white man this ultimilty made Olaf feel small and weak. So this is undoubtedly another reason why Olaf acted the way he did. The first encounter the two men had were the first time they met a lot of the thinking came from inside his head, he had said nothing outloud to the black man except for the order of where the room was, he came incresigl unsteady and frightened when the black man handed him cash and put his hand around his neck, his than facial expressions uncovered what he was feeling as his “eyes widened” from there on a year passed, and he thought he'd never had to see him again, which as we know from stated above, the big black man had come in again. Due from Olaf's past