Richard Wright: The Best Writer Richard Wright Term Paper

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Richard Wright: The Best Writer

Richard Wright is my selection for best writer among host of other black writers during and fate the Harlem Renaissance. The reason I regard Richard Wright as the best among such black intellectuals as Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Lionel Trilling is the fact that he was more politically aware of the situation of black people than most of his contemporaries. With his writings, he tried to establish a black identity that was most original in nature. It was not based on borrowed concepts or views and originated from a young educated and trained mind. In a short period of time and a relatively brief lifetime (1908-1960), he graduated from being the grandson of slave grandparents in rural Mississippi to an international renowned writer in 1940s and 1950s. He preached personal freedom for everyone including the black community. Wright was of the view that no matter what society proposes in terms of control and regulation, the truth he felt was that man could expand his wings and achieve anything he wanted in a society that promoted personal freedom.

The book that we chose to study for this paper is the Black Boy, Wright's autobiography that shows how a young black boy beat all odds against him to become of the pre-eminent writer of 20th century. Black Boy is unarguably one of the most powerful writings of the 20th century and one that had a profound impact on black community's civil rights movement. While it would be wrong to say that Wright had an unfortunate childhood, it is still true that he grew up in times of severe segregation and racism. In a society plagued by racist hatred and intense social division, Wright managed to gain influence and power through his writers and in the process triggered social revolt.

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'Wright's purposes in writing the book were threefold. He was first concerned with describing his own intellectual and emotional growth -- and explaining how it was that he did not fall into the stereotyped pattern of the behavioral responses of the southern Negro community. He was also interested in showing how the caste system literally blights the lives of the Negro minority. And finally, he wanted to indicate how the system of race relations in the South brutalizes and dehumanizes the lives of the white ruling class." (Margolies: p. 17)

In the book, Wright explained that revolt against whiteness or a white society was always a personal rebellion for him. While we might not agree with his views, it is clear that Wright for as effective solo as others were in groups. The author opted for an individualistic approach to racism. It is because of this that some accused him of being self-centered such as West who wrote: "Wright tried to create an Afro-American self-image that rests solely upon personal revolt ... His revolt was intense, but it never crystallized into any serious talk of concerted action partly because such talk presupposes a community, a set of common values and goals, at which a marginal man like Wright can only sneer." (p. 136). But Wright was certainly not egotistical in his approach to racism, he only believed that he could exert more influence and power alone than as part of a group. This is true that group identity often suppresses individual identity. The fact that Wright was a private person for whom defeating racism became a personal revolt is evident from an early age. In the Black Boy, he wrote:

"At the age of twelve, before I had had one full year of….....

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