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Violence In Richard Wright's Speech In High School

738 Words3 Pages

brainwashed into being fearful that if they do not comply to the systematic set of rules they’d be killed, beat and that’s where some physical violence can play a big role.
Going back to when Wright is young, he is asked by a teacher, “then why are you in school?”, and he says, “well I want to be a writer” (Wright 147). At this point Wright is in 7th grade and when saying this the teacher is surprised, therefore starting her question with ‘then’, as if black people can’t get an education past the seventh grade, or have goals, ambitions and maybe did not see the value of going because blacks didn’t usually get anywhere. But Wright had a dream, which was to not only become a writer but to move north and do what he saw fit to get there; “we …show more content…

The dilemma that he is facing is that the principal of the school wants Wright to recite a speech that the principal wrote, therefore not being authentically Wright’s. A peer who knows about the situation tells Wright, “Look, Dick, you’re throwing away your future here in Jackson. Go to the principal, talk to him, take his speech and say it. I’m saying the one he wrote. So why can’t you?” (Wright 176). The reasoning behind why Wright is being reluctant in reciting something not his own is for exactly that reason, the speech is composed of someone else’s words and therefore isn’t coming across in a way that he wants it to be heard. Wright’s voice doesn’t shine through the words that the principal is having him say and I think Wright is starting to realize that he has a voice and the only way to broadcast that is through his own thinking and words because ‘communication is …show more content…

Wright said, “deep down, I knew that I could never really leave the south, for my feelings had already been formed by the south” (Wright 257). In going to the south Wright hoped to change himself though with him come all the preconceived notions from the white man and was relying on things to be completely different. Yes, in the north not as many whites weren’t totally against working alongside African Americans or gawked at the fact that they were walking the same sidewalks as blacks, just the mentality of being better than was still

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