Rating: Summary: Black Boy Review: "Black Boy" was an excellent book. Very good ,but very long. I am one that doesn't like to read, but I really enjoyed this autobiography on Richard Wright. This book talked about the life of an african american boy growing up with the harsh reality that still exist in today's society, like racism and segragation . I highly recommened this book to any one. I am really looking forward to reading "Native Son", Richard Wright's other book.
Rating: Summary: Good or bad? Review: Black Boy This book was written by Richard Wright and is reviewed by Celeste Poe. This book was about a young black boy who seems to be cursed from the beginning of his life until his death. As a child he had to overcome obstacles just to understand the hatred world. His father left him and his family early in his life. His mother caught a life threatening disease early in her life and his whole family ( even the adults) hate him. I enjoyed this book because it was interesting seeing how the different times can make people seem to be weird. The way the Richard, the main character of the book, handled things seemed to be very alien to me. His actions towards things were very different. And I just think that I brains work the exact opposite. Here are some examples: "Though the biscuits were right before my eyes, I was afraid that somehow the biscuits might disappear during the night while I was sleeping. So surreptitiously, I took some of the biscuits and stuck them in my pocket." "He said for us to kill the kitten. He didn't mean it. So, I'm still gonna kill it." My favorite part of the book is when Richard is going out to make some money. So he decides to sale his dog. When he started walking he decided to try to sale him to somebody in the white neighborhood. So he went up to the house and rang the doorbell and an old lady came to the door. She then told him that she would buy it for a dollar but she asked if she could have the puppy then and give him the money tomorrow but the boy wanted the money so bad that he just took the dog and ran.
Rating: Summary: good or bad? Review: This was an excellent book. The way they blended comtemparary fiction with history was very exciting. This is one of the best books that I've ever read. I think that Richard Wright did a great job in Black Boy. Although it was a very long book, I zipped right through it. Every page kept me on the edge of my seat.
Rating: Summary: Reallistic Review: Black boy by Richard Wright. This book is about a black boy (Richard Wright) who grew up in the south in the 1900s. During the time of segregation. He has been stuggling all his life to become a man in the racist World. His father left him and his family to survive on nothing. Not shortly after that that his mother got very sick that she could not find the strength to support the family. Richard is very determine, ignorant, stubborn and on top of this a very strong individual. Richard who came from a poor family has endure alot of pressure and tension. These things made him even more stronger and even smater than he was. Growing up in the south at the peak of racism made him open his eyes wider and look at the world in a whole differnt way. I think this book is considered to be reallistic because it deals with the nature of how the world was in the 1900s. BY reading this book it made me face reality on a whole different level and also made me realized not to take things or people for granted. To all the people who choose this book to read: I hope you enjoy this book as much as i did!
Rating: Summary: black Boy review Review: The story Black Boy by Richard Wright is a novel about what he went through in life. It told of his ups, downs and hunger pain. His mother is paralyzed and suffers from seizures. He has a shy younger brother who is in some way a mama's boy. Richard's father left when he was very young. I think that the father might have left because he could not take the way his life was going with his family and wanted to start over. After a few years of separation Richard's parents divorce. Richard's mother tries her hardest to help her two young boys, but she can no longer do that when she falls ill from seizures. So Richard, his brother and mother stay at their Granny's house. Granny is a very religious woman and makes the family pray at least four to five times a day. Their Granny was almost impossible to live with. Even though they don't like it, they live with her until they can find something better. Something they can afford. His Grandpa fought in the civil war and always kept his riffle near by. Richard is constantly threatened with that riffle when he is bad. His aunt Maggie is a Christian schoolteacher. When the family could no longer live with Granny because of money, Richard is taken in by his Uncle Tom, and his little brother goes to live with their aunt Maggie. His Uncle Tom, who helps take care of Richard when his mother falls ill from a seizure, is extremely nice. Richard has his own room but when he finds out that a boy that died a couple years before use to live in that room, Richard wants to stay on the couch. His uncle doesn't let him. So therefore, Richard wants to move back in at Granny's house so he could be close to his mother. All the characters run into problems, some of the problems are hunger and racism. They all did not have enough money to feed the entire family with good wholesome meals. My favorite character in the novel is Richard because no matter what he always manages to stick with what ever he was doing. He never gives up, no matter how hard life was. I could kind of relate to Richard a little. Even though things get hard in life, I still manage to stick with it. I've never gone more than two days without food, but even though Richard went a great deal of time without food, he kept on going through life, going to school, and getting a job to survive and moving out and on his own when he got older. I have never done any thing that the characters have done, but some times I feel some of the same emotions. For example, some times feeling like everyone hates me because of my attitude. Richard had a major attitude problem with whites when he was a young boy. This book was very interesting, and I enjoyed reading it. It showed that no matter how hard life gets, especially for a black boy growing up with a great deal of racism in a white man's world, that any one can make a success in life. My favorite part of the novel is when his Granny went to slap Richard and he ducked down and she missed him completely and fell off the porch. It was a very entertaining part of the novel. My least favorite part of the novel is when Richard hung the kitten in his back yard because his father told him to either kill or get rid of it. Richard killed the kitten because he knew that he would not be slapped for doing something so cruel because his father told him to do it. He figured that if he killed the kitten then his father would feel stupid and would not slap him because he told Richard to do it, not expecting him to actually do it. He also kills the cat because he is afraid that it was going to wake up his father, who worked night shifts. To me it seemed very sad and depressing. It is cruel to animals. The kitten was probably just hungry. This book showed the hard struggles of a young black boy trying to survive in a white man's world. The type of person that I think would enjoy reading this novel would be some one thinks that their life is hard. The readers will be able to realize how easy life really is and that they do not have it hard until they experience maybe just a fraction of some of the things that Richard Wright, his family, and the African Americans from his time went through low wages, and barely any money to eat or to have a decent place to live.
Rating: Summary: te-di-ous Review: I had to read this book for my English class, but thank God I didn't have to finish it. It was the most tedious and boring book i have ever picked up. it just went on and on about struggles and the unfairness of the world, blaming everything on the shallow attidudes of white people. The author reminds us on every page of his superiority and frankly, the style of writing is far too dry to be enjoyable. If you like to read about struggles in a report format with solid facts and arrogant statements about superiority because of those struggles, then by all means, read it. It works as well as any prescription sleepaid, if not better
Rating: Summary: Black Boy Review: When I first picked up this book all I thought was just another reading assignment. However, Black Boy by Richard Wright affected me in ways no book ever has. This book is a touching autobiography describing the life of a young African American boy who struggles to find himself in such a prejudice society. He overcomes obstacles of religious, racial, and cultural segregation in the 20th century United States. During Richard's childhood, he faced many hardships with his family because of their low income, lack of a father figure in his life, and being raised in such a racist society. As he grew older the racism only continued to get worse and Richard began to learn how to cope with his surroundings. Whether with jobs or schooling, he began to alter his lifestyle to accommodate the changes of his environment. This book is an integral depiction of what American society was like during this time period. The hardships and injustices that the African American race faced each day has become a significant part of our history. All of the incidents that occurred in this book represent the struggles that African American citizens did their best to conquer each and every day. The harsh and unjust treatment of African Americans is revealed through the author's own life experiences, all of which are reflected in Black Boy. I found this book to be one of the best books I have ever read. It touched me and saddened me to know that this was a part of my history as an American. In comparison to a few books I have read about segregation, I have found Black Boy to be the most personal. This is because the way the author expresses the sentiment of human emotions and the intimate details of characters thoughts and beliefs. I would definitely recommend this book for those who are interested in the racial progress of our country.
Rating: Summary: what an amazing book! Review: Black Boy is the true story of a youth (african american, as the name says) whos father leaves him and the rest of his family around the time of the great depression. wonderfully written, wright's sentences make the story feel tangible and he takes you with him on his emotional rollercoaster... i loved it and couldnt put it down the whole time... its not uplifting, but not pessimistic.. more realistic than anything. wonderful.
Rating: Summary: Black Boy: Hunger Finds an Outlet--Words Review: BLACK BOY is one of the great classics of American literature. Written as a novel, it is actually a novelized autobiography of Richard Wright, an African-American who learns first hand and at an early age about the corrosive effects of racism on both the oppressor and the oppressed. Wright tells his tale amidst the backdrop of various themes that interact to produce in the minds of the reader that to be a young black boy in the early 20th century required one either to submit to and conform with the expectations of a white-dominant society or to stand out like a nail begging to be hammered into an unforgiving plank. During the course of the first twenty-five years of his life, Wright, the author, shows how Wright, the child, was able to first meet then overcome a series of emotionally crippling experiences that caused him to seek inward to verbalize with the written word what he dared not with the spoken. For him, his experiences with racism are portrayed via a triangle of competing symbols: his frequent beatings by his family, his obvious disappointment with the cringing and servile Stepin Fetchit attitude of many of his black acquaintances, and his gradual realization that if he cannot or will not become part of the system that degrades blacks, that perhaps he can change that system through the power of the printed word. From the time that Wright is a child, he is battered by the very people whom he ought to count on as a bulwark against a racist mentality that they understood only too well but he did not. Time and again, his mother, his grandmother, and his assorted aunts and uncles beat him mercilessly, all the while telling themselves that these beatings are for his own good in that he must learn to adapt to a white-dominant black-subservient society. Throughout the book, Richard Wright refuses to do this. The price he pays for his independence is a fearful one. He can count on no one but himself, and even within himself, he can count on only the words that he puts to paper. As one reads of the harrowing experiences of a boy who only wanted to be a good boy, then the significance of the title BLACK BOY becomes apparent to both reader and author as the boy of the title remains a boy to the eyes of whites even decades after that boy now sees himself rightfully as a man.
Rating: Summary: An American Tale As Told By Richard Wright. Review: To limit Richard Wright's autobiography to accounts of racism in the South during the 30's and 40's is overlook the fact that Richard Wright was more than just an African American author, he was novelist, essayist and political analyst whose prose still has bearing on topics of cultural identity and personal identity, topics we still deal with today. Racism seems to be issue with an immortal lifespan because everytime we're on the verge of giving it the death blow, we walk away and pretend that we've killed it by ignoring it. There are issues of identity and individualty in Black Boy that even provokes questions of victim status among those who are quick to claim that they have been racially discriminated against (Damon Cross from The Outsider for example). I've read this book twice and I am the process of reading it again. Richard's childhood was sheer hell, I mean his grandmother was psychotic!! He was from a dysfunctional family, Well there's a smorgasborg of issues going on with him in the beginning. His failed hopes and dreams. However I really enjoyed reading about his trials in Chicago. I recently went to Chicago for the first time and I felt like I knew the place. His time with the Communist Party was especially interesting. It was like he was battling for his individualty. He ultimately leaves the Communist Party after it is made clear to him that he was being used as were many of the poor blacks who were in the Communist Party ranks as tokens. Very good read! Should be required reading!
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