The black boy
Black boy is a memoir authored by Richard Wright, an American author in 1945 tracing his youth in the south Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee and eventually his move to Chicago. The autobiography is split into two parts “southern Night” and “The Horror and the Glory”. The latter concerns the life of Richard in the south while the latter talks about the early life adult years in Chicago. Some of the main characters in the memoir include Richard Wright who is the author, narrator and protagonist in the memoir. He experiences racial discrimination and segregation and an abusive environment not only from the Americans but his close relatives like his mother and Aunt Addie. The other character is Ella Wright who is Richard’s mother, tough on his son and later becomes ill and becomes partially paralyzed. Granny is another character in the autobiography, and she is Richard’s maternal grandmother who is austere and unforgiving and extremely religious. Alan is Richard’s younger brother who does not contribute a lot in the memoir.
Auntie Addie is one of Ella’s sisters and lives at home with Granny in Jackson in Mississippi. She is very rough and violent towards Richard; she humiliates and beats him. Nathan Wright is another character who is Richard’s father who also frequently beats and humiliates Richard. He later abandons his family. Auntie Maggie is Ella’s sister who is Richard’s favourite aunt. Mr Crane is a white northerner who runs a shop where Richard works. He is impartial and fair and is unhappy when Pease and Reynolds fire him from his job. Other minor characters include Ross, Ed Green, Falk, Shorty and Olin.
The memoir shows some relationship between masculinity and violence among the characters. This paper explores the relationship between masculinity and violence as presented by the memoir black boy by Richard White. Masculinity is presented as not having a weak association with violence as demonstrated by the characters in the autobiography. The paper shows a series of some selected episodes from the memoir showing some instances where men are violent than men and vice versa. However, in many chapters, women are presented as cruel, brutal, ruthless and punitive especially whenever Richard makes a mistake.
In the first chapter of the novel, Richard a young boy aged four in Mississippi accidentally sets fire to his grandparent’s house. Isn’t this violence? Here there is some element of violence in the masculine gender. The young boy is so naughty and curious, and unfortunately, he has access to fire, and he ends up setting fire on the house. Even when his mother tells them (Richard and his unnamed brother) to stay calm because their grandmother is dying, Richard is bored and not knowing to do to occupy himself; he sets fire on the house. Richard hears screams in the house and hides so that his family does not realize he is the one responsible for setting the house ablaze. Richard records that every morning his mother scolds him telling him to keep still. He presents his mother and grandmother as frightening and distant (Wright, 3). From this incident, a conclusion regarding the relationship between masculinity and violence can be drawn. Boys and men are known to be violent as demonstrated by Richard who through his mischievousness sets their house on fire. Boys are known to be rough and mischievous compared to girls and the element of violence among men and boys is demonstrated by this incident.
What next after the Richard sets the house on fire? What is the reaction of the family towards it? Ella, who is Richard’s mother beats him unconscious and to near death. The other relatives of the family are not left behind too; they want to discipline Richard after realizing that he was responsible for setting the house on fire. The parents beat him, and Richard almost dies although he ultimately survives. The punishment by his mother shows that women too are violent. Otherwise, she would have abstained from beating him to near death. It is his mother Ella, who is at the forefront of beating his son. Richard faces physical abuse from women (his mother, grandmother and Aunt Addie). All these black women were abusive to Richard. Aunt Addie brutalizes him as a child and torments him; his grandmother constantly battles his growing secularism. Women here are presented as being brutal and violent as they beat the young boy to near death. They ought to have pitied the young boy, shouldn’t they? Instead, they beat the boy mercilessly (Wright, 99). Although the feminine gender is considered to be soft and merciful, the women in the novel as presented by Richard are brutal and merciless. Thus the relationship between masculinity and violence is overshadowed by violence by the feminine gender.
After this incident, the family migrates to Memphis which causes horrifying effects on the whole family. Richard’s father becomes not only alienated but also very violent and brutal. Richard takes one of his father’s careless commands at face value, and he cruelly kills a kitten. Richard’s father is hot-tempered and impatient due to his frustrations. If his father cannot be decent, then Richard will be worse and that way he will prove his powers of aggression. This incident becomes the model for the relationship between Richard and other men throughout the novel. From this point, Richard becomes impatient with their cowardice and will humiliate them with his masculinity. He is very disgusted and annoyed by men who allow themselves to be contracted by the white society (Wright, 23).
The disappearance of Richard’s father brings constant hunger not only to Richard but also to the entire family. This forces Richard’s mother to go to work and Richard is forced to make it on his own in Memphis. He knows that he can give as much brutality as he has taken; he feels he is free to go wherever he wishes. Life in the streets of Memphis is difficult and leads him to become a drunkard at only six years of age, and he also becomes a beggar in the streets. His mother once again beats him and prays for his salvation. Thus from this incident, femininity is associated with brutality and violence as demonstrated by Richard’s mother. The influence of his mother is compelling; she forces him to be independent. In the streets, Richard exerts his masculinity unconscious of the imminent castration of black boys and men.
In the novel, masculinity and violence are demonstrated to have a strong relationship with Richard’s life, where fighting is just part of his life. He fights at home, at school and the working place. When he grows up, he tries to discard his violent lifestyle even when forced by his friends wanted him to do so. His life is full of violence, uncontrollable; he becomes an alcoholic before he’s six. He starts working when he is just eleven, and he experiences racism among white people.
After being forced to attend religious classes by his granny, Richard attends classes where his aunt (Addie) teaches. His granny was always tough on him forcing him to participate in religious classes, a pious believer of Seven-Day Adventist. The grandma sees a sinful grandson and tries to reform him. The brutality of Richard’s aunt is far from over as she beats him in class for eating walnuts, though it was not Richard who was eating the nuts a fellow student sitting in front of him. Addie is not satisfied with beating Richard in class, and she extends the fight back home, but this time Richard fends her a knife. Similar scenes recur with intense frequency in the following months and years. The animosity extended to a point when Richard dodged one of the granny’s slaps making her lose balance and injuring herself. Later, Tom who was another uncle of Richard and after a morning altercation, Richard fends him off with razor blades. These incidences show that women are more violent even than men.
In another episode, Richard’s mother falls sick, and Granny is tasked with caring and bathing him and his brother. One occasion, while Granny is scrubbing his backside, Richard absentmindedly tells her that when she is done with the scrubbing, she can kiss him back there. This makes Granny very annoyed and ranging with ire; she starts beating him with the wet towel. Later after his mother has learnt about the incidence, she joins the pursuit to punish him. Richard, in an attempt to escape and save himself from the angry mother and grandma, crawls to the bed where he is out of reach by both. The young boy remains there until thirst and hunger drive him, and his mother gets an opportunity to beat him with a switch. From this episode, the relationship between masculinity and violence can be contrasted with that of femininity. From the episode, it is apparent that women are violent as shown by the brutality of Richard’s mother and grandma. They are unforgiving in all circumstances; whenever Richard makes a mistake, he is punished with immediate effect. Wright is making a point that women are violent, through this episode and many others. Through the autobiography he records series of episodes showing the brutality of his female relatives who torment him a lot.
After Richard graduated with ninth grade as valedictorian, he enters the adult working world in Jackson where he suffers many frightening and violent encounters with racism. Some of his tormentors include Pease and Reynolds who ran Richard off his job at an optical shop, suggesting that such skilled work did not belong to the blacks. Richard is irked by the fact that Mr Crane, the northerner who runs the company had hired him purposely to teach the black man the optical trade but ironically does very little to save his situation against the racist employees. Due to his despair, Richard decides to move to the north immediately. He swindles his boss to get cash for the journey and eventually goes to Memphis where the conditions are safer for his preparations to move to Chicago. This episode shows the masculinity violence associated with white men. The episode also introduces the theme of racism among blacks by the whites. Richard Wright’s novel thus shows some relationship between masculinity and violence through the whites. The society is also patriarchal in a way as demonstrated by this episode.
In chapter four of the novel similar incidences of animosity between Richard and his female relatives continue. Richard is subjected to severe religious discipline, Granny being very religious condemns all the activities of Richard as sinful. Addie, his aunt, is a carbon copy of the Granny, and she engages Richard into vicious battles and quarrels. This episode is yet another indication of feminine violence, in contrast to the masculinity violence. In this incident, it is women again who are involved in the brutality towards the young boy.
Due to the era of Jim Crow, Richard is expected to be obedient, abject and silent as a slave in everything but name. This is contrary to what is known about Richard: rebellious and violent. He craves for independence and other necessities which a job will provide. The first confrontation is with his female employer who abuses his race and dignity for humanity. The confrontation is disastrous. The employer undermines his ambitions of becoming a writer. He refused on strong terms to be beaten by his uncle, Tom he cannot stoop so low for the standards of being a slave- even to the whites. Richard is beaten by whites passing in a car, fired from one job for witnessing the beating of a black woman by whites and tormented by two workmates in an optical house. In all these incidences, he is not allowed or given an opportunity to react back or respond as a man. This is not similar to the home where he could fight back or protest upon dissatisfaction.
In the new world, he is living in; he is stripped off his humanity and manhood. Even with this massive humiliation, Richard cannot communicate his rage to Griggs, a black comrade who secures him the job in the optical house. Griggs advises him that he’s living in the world of whites, he must therefore think before he acts and think before he speaks. Although he decides to lower his ego, he is tortured once again by his fellow workers which forces him to quit the job, never to work there again and resolves to go north to seek solace and asylum. From this episode, masculinity and violence have a strong relationship. It is very clear that Richard has a strong ego of manhood which he cannot afford to drop even at the hands of the white people. He is violent and confronts the whites at the workplace. This shows how muscularity is associated with violence with Richard being the primary reference. He only escapes when things are too tight to bear, and his violent retaliation cannot work anymore. Even when he decides to go north, he shows a violent act by swindling his boss for the cash he needs.
When he goes to the north, his landlady Mrs Moss has a daughter, Bess falls in love with him. However his instinct does not allow him to date her because of the experience with women including his mother- they are violent. His instincts tell him to refuse her although her mother has already offered her for him.
In conclusion, the relationship between masculinity and violence is not as strong as that of violence and femininity, according to the black boy by Richard Wright. Throughout the novel, the women Richard encounters are presented as being harsh, brutal, cruel and violent than men. Richard’s female relatives are more significant in his life than the male ones, and they shape his being a big deal. His mother is violent and tough on him, and she disciplines him harshly. When she accidentally sets the house ablaze in the first chapter of the book, he is beaten to near death by his mother. She is unforgiving. Richard has a series of quarrels with other female relatives like the granny and Aunt Addie who are very tough and harsh on him. Richard and Addie are in constant conflict, and at one time Addie beats Richard for a mistake he did not make. In class, his friend was eating a nut, but his aunt punished him. Isn’t this violence? This novel presents female characters as being more violent than men especially because much of the time is spent with the female relatives. Granny, despite her advanced age, is still brutal and violent and she is in a constant state of conflict with Richard, primarily because of his belief in religion which was insignificant to Richard. It is this experience with women that makes Richard not to fall in love with, Bess, Mrs Moss’s daughter who was his landlady. His experience with women could not allow him to date her as his instinct insisted he refuses her.
Although women are presented to be violent in the novel, Richard himself shows some element of masculinity and violence. He starts by setting their house on fire and from there he was brutal until the last chapters of the autobiography. He is independent and wants to do what he wants not what he is told. He even collides with the white people who want to strip him his manhood. Throughout the novel, Richard is presented as violent and disobedient which is the genesis of the troubled relationship with the female relatives. His ego is too high that he cannot heed to the commands of the white people at the workplace. He is an alcoholic when he is very one and starts working at a very young age. Richard, therefore, shows a solid relationship between masculinity and violence.
So what point is the author trying to make? Richard Wright’s autobiography is trying to show that women are more violent than men. From the start of the memoir to the end, women are presented to be more violent than men. Richard’s female relatives like his mother Ella, his Granny and Aunt Addie, in particular, are very brutal to the young boy. Their relationship with Richard is troubled, and this makes them very harsh. Whenever Richard makes a mistake, they are quick to punish and discipline him mercilessly at one point they almost killed him. They are provoking too. Thus, a Black boy is a novel whereby the relationship between masculinity and violence is weak.
Works Cited
Wright, R. (1945). Black boy. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.