The Man Who Was Almost A Man Analysis

In “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”, the search of power and the coming of age is the key theme in the story because the main character Dave puts himself in a situation where he feels that’s he can’t stand up to the wrongs that he has done. Richard Wright father an uneducated farm worker left home when he was six, so he was raised without a father. Growing up he had a tough childhood due to his mother illness. He and his brother later moved to Mississippi where he was heavily influenced by his grandmother, therefore he displays the coming of age without a father figure in his poem “The Man Who was almost a Man”. His works compares to my life because I have done things in the past that made me feel powerful like a man but I was just doing these

He is portrayed as a boy even though he is seventeen years old, for his mother takes control of his pay. His dad treats him like a kid and still beats him if he did something wrong,"Yuh wan me take a tree n beat yuh till yuh talk". He doesn’t feel respected neither from family or other workers in the field. He feel if he had a gun he’ll gain the respect of others. "But, Ma, we needa gun. Pa ain got no gun. We needa gun in the house. Yuh kin never tell whut might happen." He tries to explain to his mother that they need a gun for protection but he need it to feel powerful, to feel like a

However, paradoxically, the process of learning to obtain masculine self-fulfilment is characterised by a boy’s recognition of his inadequacy”. I agree with this because many young men like Dave and myself defines manhood with an age but I learn that from my mistakes. Dave never gave the gun to his mother and ended up killing jenny (the mule) and lied about the death of the resulting in having to pay for the death. It’s easy to lie about something but it’s not so easy to stand just to your action and that’s what a man would do. For me not having freedom and the power to do what I wanted made me learn the hard way because I didn’t have a father who was really involved in my life to teach me.

No one is perfect so you’re going to make mistakes but sometimes it could have been prevented. I feel that Dave implementation bad judgment. Lying about the mule falling after shooting it and trying to fix his mistake. His mother also made bad judgment because they gave him the money to go get the gun, didn’t mention it to her husband and the sell, Joe who sold a minor a gun. You live and you learn but sometime you have to look at things from all angles. He could have killed someone instead of a