Compare And Contrast Black Boy And Ralph Ellison

Wright vs Ellison; the stronger duckling versus the weakling Living in the Jim Crow South was extremely difficult for any African-American. In Richard Wright's Black Boy and Ralph Ellison's chapter “Battle Royal,” both authors vividly discuss their life hardships endured living through brutal times. Each author has different, but similar stories from one another, and express their ideas in completely different ways using several figurative language expressions. Although both men suffered through dismal times, Wright was more effective than Ellison in his depiction of his coming of age, and how he was affected by the oppression he endured. However, the influence of family, violence, and their appeal towards education as well as finding a

As if living in the south as an African-American was not challenging enough, Richard lived in a troublesome household striving to make ends meet. For instance, when Richard was living with his very religious grandparents, he struggled to find his faith, which made his Granny very upset. In Chapter Five, he describes Granny's house as a prison. “I could breathe again, live again, that I had been released from a prison” (122). The reader learns this author has finally been given the chance to go to school, and escape the strangling he felt at home. Prison is where you are trapped and limited, and alienated from society. When he went to school, he felt somewhat normal and was able to let loose. School saved him, like religion saved Granny. In his situation, he would escape to the books to see the the world in an entirely different way than he had ever. Ralph on the other hand, was a smart boy who searches for his identity, as he always struggled with society as an African-American. Just when he feels a part of society, an event regarding with his Grandfather's curse undergoes which causes him to go right back to where he started. Grandfather's deathbed speech was full of symbolism and lots of questioning, which the family worried about more. “Undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death”(1) Unlike Ralph, Grandfather was not afraid of the superior race, and the only way to associate himself with them, is to give them exactly what they want to hear. In the Battle Royal, the young African- Americans were thrown derogatory names that put down their race, which led them to get rallied up. That night, Ralph dreams that he and his Grandfather and him were at a circus, and Grandfather would never laugh at the clowns. This foreshadows when the African-Americans