ipl-logo

How Does Richard Wright Use Weapons Against Man

636 Words3 Pages

In Richard Wright’s novel, Black Boy, Richard consciously uses weapons against people in order to defend himself against unjust treatment caused by conflict within his family and people in his neighborhood. For instance, Richard deliberately uses a stick against a gang of boys in his neighborhood in order to defend himself. Richard explains, “When I reached the corner a gang of boys grabbed me, knocked me down, snatched the basket, took the money, and sent me running home in panic” (Wright 16). Consequently, as soon as the boys beat him up, Richard builds up his confidence and defends himself. Richard’s mom states, “‘Take this money, this note, and this stick, go to the store and buy those groceries…” (Wright 17). Richard’s mom has faith in him that he is able to get past those boys and buy the groceries. At this point, money is not as important as it is for Richard to learn how to defend himself against people because his mom keeps giving him money, even though he may get beaten up again. Richard explains, “I let the stick fly, feeling it crack against a boy’s skull. I swung again lamming …show more content…

Richard declares, “I saw him tearing a long, young, green switch from the elm tree. I was damned if he was going to beat me with it” (Wright 158). Uncle Tom wanted to beat Richard, but he didn’t even do anything wrong. Uncle Tom considered Richard’s comment to be snarky, which upset him. This is analogous to the situation with Aunt Addie. They both wanted to whip Richard for something that wasn’t his fault, or didn’t even do. Richard also explains, “I’ve got a razor in each hand! If you touch me, I’ll cut you! Maybe I’ll get cut too, but I’ll cut you…” (Wright 159). In order for Richard to stop Uncle Tom from beating him, he threatens him with razors. At this point, Richard is adept at defending himself because he stopped Aunt Addie and Uncle Tom from beating

Show More
Related

Summary Of Fist Stick Knife Gun

565 Words | 3 Pages

Violence doesn’t always lead to bad things. Fist,Stick,Knife,Gun by Geoffrey Canada is about how violence in South Bronx, New York. It tells us how violence had became more deadly and dangerous in New York and how he had to deal with it. Soon he became aware of it and decided to help make a change in his community. Geoffrey Canada’s main message for the story is that the effects of violence on someone’s life can influence them to make change in their community.

Read More

Fist Stick Knife Gun Summary

681 Words | 3 Pages

Geoffrey Canada does an excellent job of bringing his readers to the streets of the South Bronx and making them understand the culture and code of growing up in a poor, New York City neighborhood in the ‘50s and ‘60s. In his book, Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun, Canada details, through his own childhood experiences, the progression of violence in poverty plagued neighborhoods across America over the last 50 years. From learning to be “brave” by being forced to fight his best friend on a sidewalk at six-years-old, to staring down an enraged, knife wielding, “outsider” with nothing to defend himself but nerve, Canada explains the nightmare of fear that tens of thousands of children live through every day growing up in poor neighborhoods. The book

Read More

Joe Wilkins's Growing Up Hard

179 Words | 1 Pages

In Growing Up Hard the writer Joe Wilkins talks about his life growing up on the Big Dry and living in Montana. He begins mentioning how his family had little money, so for food they depended on the animals on the land. He went into detail on how he helped his father and grandmother kill chickens for a Sunday dinner. When his father died, his grandfather taught him to hunt. The writer’s detailed description of his first hunt by himself from what he smelled to tasting dust helped me imagine what exactly went on at the time of the kill.

Read More

Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria Summary

765 Words | 4 Pages

In the first chapter of Beverly Tatum’s, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”, And Other Conversations About Race, the author immediately clarifies that racism is not a thing of the past. People in today’s society are merely raised with racial concepts at such a young age that they do not realize the injustice going on around them. She reinforces her statement by showing an example of a group of preschoolers who were told to draw a picture of a Native American. Most of the children didn’t even know what a Native American was, but after being told to draw an Indian, complied. Recurring elements in all of their drawings were feathers, along with a violent weapon, such as a knife.

Read More

Delinquency In Fist Stick Knife Gun By Geoffrey Canada

1143 Words | 5 Pages

The book Fist Stick Knife Gun by Geoffrey Canada is a memoir of his early childhood in the slums of south Bronx. Geoffrey’s single mother did the best she could with the little she had to raise him and his four older brothers. She provided them with street knowledge that would later help them survive and not be victims even in the most violent areas of the south Bronx. Geoffrey and his brothers would go on to move from place to place with their mother until they finally settled on Union Avenue, the area where they would spend most of their childhood growing up. Union Avenue became their school of life, there they learned everything they needed to know in order to survive in the ghetto.

Read More

Stanton L. Wormley's Essay Fighting Back

109 Words | 1 Pages

In the essay “Fighting Back,” author Stanton L. Wormley Jr. explains that developing the instinct to fight back diminishes the ability to forgive. He supports this explanation by first establishing credibility with his personal experiences, then captivates the audience by presenting a powerful question, “Was I less of a man for not having beaten my attacker to a bloody pulp?” (Wormley 1). Wormley’s purpose is to illustrate the unnecessity of violence in order to also make a political statement to our country’s government. He builds a formal tone for an audience of minorities and majorities.

Read More

Opposites Attract In The Outsiders By S. E. Hinton

1053 Words | 5 Pages

It shows that his dad does not care for him. Similarly, Johnny’s parents ignore him most of the time, but when they do acknowledge him they are beating him. Johnny even says, “‘ I think I like it better when the old man is hittin’ me.” Johnny sighed. “At least I know he knows who I am”’ (51).

Read More

Family And Cultural Support Structure In Richard Write's Black Boy

1040 Words | 5 Pages

While Richard is doing his late-night deliveries with a rusty bike in a white neighborhood, he is confronted by multiple white men who offer to give Richard a ride home. While Richard was in the car with the white men, he was hit in the head with a whiskey bottle because he responded to a white man by saying "Oh, no" instead of "No, sir. " They continuously beat him up, and Richard had no idea why they

Read More

Trayvon Martin: Racial Discrimination In America

869 Words | 4 Pages

Brother Hinton was attacked with nightsticks. His scalp was split open…” (X 238). The police, who had been breaking up a fight between two black people, attacked Hinton merely because he did not run away as ordered. The police’s use of violence suggests that he believed it was acceptable for him to start violence, but not other

Read More

Isolation In Richard Wright's Black Boy

1024 Words | 5 Pages

Richard has always felt the unjust of race, and has felt how segregation made it hard for him to have a future. But when he gets a chance to get revenge on the whites, he refuses when he thinks ”Who wanted to look them straight in the face, who wanted to walk and act like a man.(200)” Stealing went against his morals of the right way to succeed and would not help the community appearance to the whites. The community as a whole is very religous but Richard does not share these beliefs, even with the persistence of his friends and family he says ”Mama, I don't feel a thing.(155)” This caused his friends to beg him, but in face of rejection they leave him alone.

Read More

Prejudice And Discrimination In Richard Wright's Black Boy

3767 Words | 16 Pages

So it is due to hunger, hardship and scarcity that he is introduced to the harsh actualities of bigotry. On occasion, things deteriorated that Richard and his family had nothing to consume in view of the extraordinary level of poverty. In order to save themselves from the conditions

Read More

The Reality Of Religion In Richard Wright's 'Blackboy'

1183 Words | 5 Pages

However, they expose him to religion in violent and mentally abusive ways that make their purpose larger than religion itself while completely ignoring Richard’s attempts to make his own choices with religion. Even as Richard becomes older and more able to think for himself, his family’s actions only intensify and they forever change his opinion on religion. However, while Richard’s family was unethical in the way they exposed him to religion, their actions truly reflect the hardships that are associated with a poor African American family during their time. Throughout his childhood, Richard is constantly exposed to religion in unethical ways by his family.

Read More

Racial Segregation In Richard Wright's Black Boy

515 Words | 3 Pages

“I was learning rapidly how to watch white people, to observe their every move, every fleeting expression, how to interpret what we said and what we left unsaid” (Wright 181). Richard uses his observation of whites to guide himself on how to act and react around white people. For example he must agree with the whites even if he truly disagrees. For example he must agree with the whites even if he truly disagrees. “I answered with false heartiness, falling quickly into that nigger-being-a-good-natured-boy-in-the- presence-of-a-white-man pattern, a pattern into which I could now slide easily” (Wright 234).

Read More

Analysis Of Clint Smith's 'Playground Elegy'

419 Words | 2 Pages

At another point in his childhood, Smith had “bought Super Soakers” to play with his friends, who happened to be white (“Counterfactual” line 4). After ten minutes, his father urgently pulled him away from the fun by saying he was “foolish” and “naïve” to be “out [there] / acting the same” as his white friends, even though the kids were only “pretending to shoot guns” (“Counterfactual” lines 18, 21, 22-23, 24). While Smith was unaware of how this looked at the time, his father saw the danger behind a black boy holding a pretend gun, even though no one would think twice about his white friends doing the

Read More

Racism And Violence In Richard Wright's Black Boy

671 Words | 3 Pages

The story represents the culmination of Wright’s passionate desire to observe and reflect upon the racist world around him. Racism is so insidious that it prevents Richard from interacting normally, even with the whites who do treat him with a semblance of respect or with fellow blacks. For Richard, the true problem of racism is not simply that it exists, but that its roots in American culture are so deep it is doubtful whether these roots can be destroyed without destroying the culture itself. “It might have been that my tardiness in learning to sense white people as "white" people came from the fact that many of my relatives were "white"-looking people. My grandmother, who was white as any "white" person, had never looked "white" to me” (Wright 23).

Read More

More about How Does Richard Wright Use Weapons Against Man

Related Topics

Open Document