Richard Wright’s power of observation and the recording of vivid details of the environment in Black Boy
Richard Wright’s biography Black Boy is a vivid example of his use of naturalistic fiction to depict the real world in all its harshness, violence, betrayal, deprivation in rapacious slum cities, misery, prostitution, dispossession, and unemployment. , while at the same time creating the image of balance from the promise of the natural environment.
Wright always strives to bring the landscape, as well as other cultural background, to life in the reader’s mind. Let him witness his detailed and graphic descriptions of the various homes in which Richard lived and the healthy or unhealthy environment that surrounded them.
or Wright we witness the particularly evocative use of language in the opening paragraphs of the book. First of all, he carefully establishes the time, climate, and coolness from his memory. First he establishes that it was on a winter morning. Although it happened long before his narration and when he was only four years old, he was still very attentive to detail and as such very observant. He could, for example, remember such mundane details as standing in front of a fireplace warming his hands over a mound of glowing coals. Adding much to the liveliness of his description was the succinctly effective way in which he exploits the beauty and special feeling of nature when he remembers hearing the wind whistling past outside the house. These were his relief from the stifling air of excessive parental control and an air of oppression that stifled his search for freedom and self-expression. The oppressive and suffocating air that he wants to get rid of includes the scolding of his mother, who tells him to stay still and warns him not to make noise. Richard becomes like this: angry, irritable and impatient.
o But then her need for freedom of expression and movement is also held back by the atmosphere in the house where her grandmother lay all day and night in the next room under the doctor’s care. But then Richard, forced to suppress his excess energy and craving for freedom, walked restlessly to the window and pushed aside the long fluffy white curtains that he had been forbidden to touch and looked longingly out into the empty street dreaming of running and playing and shouting. . . But the vivid image of his grandmother’s grim, wrinkled white face, framed by a halo of tousled black hair on a huge feather pillow, frightened him, though he didn’t say what.
o In Memphis, Richard revealed that they lived in a one-story brick dwelling. The stone buildings and concrete sidewalks seemed desolate and hostile. The city, according to Richard, seemed dead and desolate mainly because of the absence of the luxuriance of the green things that grew. The house was congested with four of them crammed into a kitchen and a bedroom.
o The next house that Richard was going to live in was the home where he had been hospitalized due to his mother’s illness. It is more particularly detailed about the surroundings of the orphanage and the atmosphere of mistrust and deception that characterizes life there. The most we are told of the structure itself is that, like many other structures mentioned in the book, it is a frame building, even though it is a two-story structure. It is also located in the middle of trees in a wide green field. The house itself is said to be always full of children, as well as a storm of noise that almost suggests that it is inhabited by a particularly rowdy and unruly group of children. The daily routine there, he said, was a blur, a new suggestion of chaos and confusion complemented by an abiding sense of perpetual hunger and fear. The children there bear a silent hostility and grudge against each other, as they continually complain of hunger while suffering from food deprivation and inhabit a general atmosphere of nervousness, intrigue and betrayal while one continues to lie on top of the other. But then, the uncontrolled growth of vast expanses of grass in the complex could only be controlled by the authorities harnessing their energies, as they would be forced to pull them with their bare hands.
o Another two-story frame house is Richard’s grandmother’s house in Jackson, which Richard described as a lovely place to explore. It had seven rooms. He and his brother used to play hide-and-seek in the long, narrow hallways, as well as on and under the stairs. Its white plastered walls, its front and back porches, its round columns and railings made him feel that no house in the world could compare to its splendor. Richard and his brother thus enjoyed wandering, playing and shouting in such a large space and in wide green fields.
o In Elaine, Arkansas, Richard’s aunt, Aunt Maggie, lived in a bungalow surrounded by a fence. Here in the house, Richard was open to a lot of food for the first time in his life. The sheltered aspect of the house warmed his heart because he was finally living in something that felt like home to him. A wide, dusty path led past the house, on each side of which grew green wildflowers. Being summer, the smell of clay dust was everywhere. The place was so welcoming that Richard got up early every morning just to wade with his bare feet through the dust of the road that was revealed in the strange mixture of the cold dewy crust on the road and the warm dust scorched by the sun. under. . After sunrise, the bees would come out and Richard soon discovered that by slapping the palms of his hands hard, he could hit a box.
o Next, Richard revealed that they rented half of a two-cornered house in front of which ran a stagnant ditch carrying sewage. His neighborhood was infested with rats, cats, dogs, fortune tellers, the crippled, the blind, whores, sellers and collectors, and children. Opposite his flat was a huge roundhouse where locomotives were cleaned and repaired. Bareheaded and barefoot, Richard and other black boys used to stand and watch the men go in, out, over and under the huge black metal engines.
o Richard now lived in a two-story one-story house. The building had originally been a single service unit and had been converted to two floors, with doors on one floor leading to the adjoining floor. These doors had been securely bolted, bolted, and nailed shut.
o Richard arrived in Memphis on a cold Sunday morning in November 1925 and dragged his suitcase along a quiet, empty sidewalk in the winter sun. He found Beale Street, the street he had been told was full of dangers, pickpockets, prostitutes, murderers, and black henchmen. After walking several blocks, he saw a large wooden house with a ROOMS sign in the window. He slowed down wondering if it was a boarding house or a whorehouse. Having heard about the silly mistakes small town kids made when they went to big cities, he wanted to be cautious.