Richard Wright Did Not Help The African American Community

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Recommended: Nature and function of criticism

Many critics have categorized Richard Wright’s characters as racist. They feel that his writing did not help, but hurt the African America community. African American critics say that his writings amplified the preconceived notions of whites that black people could not be trusted, were not worthless, and were incapable of making decisions on their own. His critics wanted black writers to be portrayed as trustworthy, educated, and were equally.
Through his writings, Richard Wright was able to share with the world the hatred, fear, and violence that African American men face, including himself experienced on a day to day basis. Perhaps, many critics failed to look at the bigger picture. Richard Wright lived his life through his characters, many of the things he wish he could have done and/or said to his mother and father, his friends, and his white counterparts, becomes a reality through his writing.
Richard Wright had a traumatic childhood. Jay Mechling, in Journal of American Folklore, describes Richard Wright’s works as an exploration of an unstable life. Wright’s relationship with his mother was traumatic. She raised him to be strong but her tactics were very harsh. In Black Boy, his mother made him fight the boys in the gang who would bully him for money he was supposed to buy groceries with. His mother called him “foolish” because he wanted to sell his dog to a white girl in return for a dollar. She also slapped him, when he went on his first train ride and began to question her about the race of his grandmother who had very light skin. She never communicated or bonded with him. The relationship he had with his mother caused him to become rebellious and stubborn. He was mistreated and alienated as a child. Being rebellious...

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...ks Cited

Tremaine, Louis. "The Dissociated Sensibility of Bigger Thomas in Wright's Native Son." Studies in American Fiction 14.1 (Spring 1986): 63-76. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 180. Detroit: Gale, 2007.Literature Resource Center. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
"The Enduring Importance of Richard Wright." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education No. 59 (2008): 58-62. JSTOR. Web. 16 Apr. 2014
Giles, James R. "Richard Wright's Successful Failure: A New Look At Uncle Tom's
Children." Phylon: The Atlanta University Review Of Race And Culture 34.3
(1973): 256-266. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.

Mechling, Jay. "The Failure Of Folklore In Richard Wright's Black Boy." Journal Of
American Folklore 104.413 (1991): 275-294. MLA International Bibliography.
Web. 24 Mar. 2014

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