Hunger, Pain, And Tolerance In Richard Wright's Black Boy

Within the autobiography Black Boy, written by Richard Wright, many proposals of hunger, pain, and tolerance are exemplified by Wright’s personal accounts as a child and also as an adolescent coming of manhood. Wright’s past emotions of aspirations along with a disgust towards racism defined his perspective towards equality along with liberal freedom; consequently, he progressed North, seeking a life filled with opportunity as well as a life not judged by authority, but a life led separately by perspective and choices.
In the years, previous before the present days of life in Europe, Wright’s youth was comprised of submissiveness and a lack of understanding of the racial factors enclosed by his world. Questioned about school by the white lady

Wright works for, they conversate with distinct differences in superiority:
“What grade are you in school?”
“Seventh, ma’am.”
“Then why are you going to school?” she asked in surprise.
“Well, I want to be a writer,” [he] mumbled, unsure of [himself]; [he] had not planned to tell her that, but she had made [him] feel so utterly wrong and of no account that [he] needed to bolster [himself].
“You’ll never be a writer,” she said. “Who on earth put such ideas into your head?” (Wright 147)
The white woman questions allowed Wright to become vulnerable, with no mitigation; therefore, allowed the lady to continue to judge Wright into a place of society. The lady’s words assaulted Wright's self-confidence, but also supposed that the lady knew where Richard, a black boy, belonged in society. After facing the problems of Pease at the optical shop, Wright “walked down Capitol Street feeling that the sidewalk was unreal, [he] was unreal, that the people were unreal, yet expecting somebody to demand to know what right I had to be on the streets. [His] wound felt deep; [he] felt that [he] had been slapped out of the human race” (190). Society’s culture of previous racism acts through slavery had been reenacted again when Wright was threatened by white men at his work. Through this, Wright feels as if he was a nobody, feels as if he were to be questioned for every right he rightfully had, and feels as if he is an outcast of society by being an African American. Wright, acting out of submissiveness and lowering emotions in the presence of White beings, caused him to feel neglected in society.
Along with racial separation, a desire for education and a need for money motivated him to be independent and individualistic. After receiving a chide from his mother about accepting the money in exchange for a dog, Wright announces anaphoras afterwards then concludes, “Anything seemed possible, likely, feasible, because I wanted everything to be possible… Because I had no power to make things happen outside of me in the objective world, I made things happen within. Because my environment was bare and bleak, I endowed it with unlimited potentialities, redeemed it for the sake of my own hungry and cloudy yearning” (73). Wright’s development towards a thought of yearning created a sense of motivation for him. As his surroundings and community was unjust, he gave into hunger and his strive to produce a stable income, yet still allow himself to accumulate knowledge for the North. Reading a book by H.L. Mencken allowed him to think, “I concluded the book with the conviction that I had somehow overlooked something terribly important in life. I had once tried to write, had once reveled in feeling, had let my crude imagination roam, but the impulse to dream had been slowly beaten out of me. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books, new ways of looking and seeing” (249). As Wright read the preface of a book by H.L. Mencken, he began yearning to read, to learn, to see-again. Previously, the acts of reading and education never deemed to be worthy for such a boy, as he was Black, but allowing himself to indulge in books, anew, made him a new person entirely. Education and an aim for learning allowed himself to work towards his goals of, eventually, leaving the North.
The past mustered new thoughts of leaving the South due to violent abuse he had endured and witnessed.

Shorty, an elevator man, had exemplified abject manners by allowing a White man “swing his foot into Shorty’s rump with all the strength in his body” (228) for just a quarter. Shorty just says, “My ass is tough and quarters is scarce” (229). Shorty, allowing a White man to do anything as he pleases to him, shows that he degrades himself, even if it rewards him of a quarter. Allowing oneself to act in a demeaning manner is something that Richard would not allow himself to do to satisfy a White man’s resentment. After dealing with Aunt Addie and Granny’s religious attachments, Richard “no longer set apart from being sinful, [he] felt that [he] could breathe again” (122). Aunt Addie and Granny seem to always stray away from rational judgments, allowing themselves to be controlled by the religion they practice in. Being called sinful and bad, Richard dealt with abuse continually; however, Richard did not fully submit in these family arguments, but he had defended himself several times to several other people within his family. Richard’s observations in abuse and being abused himself, allowed himself to feel resentment towards others who inflict that upon

him.
Richard covets an act of equality, a place where his own rights may be applied, and an escape from the frequent abuse that emanates from the south. Throughout his early life to his adolescent life, Wright begins to slowly learn about the world he lives in-a bubble separated from the outside world. His knowledge of society eventually forms and allows him to decide between to paths-staying or leaving. Eventually, faced with the numeral problems in the South, Richard exits his origin in search of a betterment in society and himself.