Violence in Richard Wright’s Black Boy Essay -- Richard Wright Black B

Violence in Richard Wrights Black Boy Most literary works centering on adolescence do not depict it as the proverbial walk through the park a smooth transition mingled with the naivet6 and innocence of puerility to the morality and self - ken of adulthood is an implausibility confined to the most basic of fairy tales and weekday morning childrens television programming. When analyzed in depth, the mat uration process of a human being is depicted almost always as some sort of struggle, retaliation against the forces of oppression regardless of their forms (including social, governmental or religious obstacles). More importantly, the struggle of adolescence is a struggle to understand not the workings of ones environment so much as the complexities and definitions of ones own individualism operator. Body hair, voice undulations, wider hips these popular aspects of maturation pale in comparison with the development of self- sense the realization that one is a alone(p) human be ing with the right to survive and live life according to personal standards. Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson describes this delicate transitional period as a crisis of identityIt occurs in that per iod of the life cycle when each youth must forge for himself some central perspective and direction, some working unity, out of the effective remnants of his childishness and the hopes of his anticipated adulthood he must detect some meaningful resemblance b etween what he has come to see in himself and what his sharpened awareness tels him others judge and expect him to be. In some young people, in some classes, at some periods in history, this crisis of identity wil be minimal in other people, classes, and periods the crisis wil be clearly marked off as a critical pe... ...nt in the future can one possibly change his or her downtrodden situation, can mold, spirt and tune their lives with al the freedom that comes from possessing an individual identity. Works CitedElison, Ralph. Invisible Man . New York Vintage, 1995. Erikson, Erik. Young Man Luther. New York Norton, 1962.Howe, Irving. Black Boys and Native Sons, CriticalEssays on Richard Wright. ed. Yoshinobu Hakutani. capital of Massachusetts G.K. Hal and C o., 1982. 39 -47. Hurston, Zora Neale. Mules and Men . New York Harper never-failing, 1990. Kinnamon, Kenneth and Michael Fabre. How Richard Wright Looks at Black Boy, Conversations with Richard Wright. Jackson University Press of Mississippi, 1993 . 63-66.Margolies, Edward. The Art of Richard Wright. Carbondale Southern Ilinois University Press, 1969.Wright, Richard. Black Boy . New York interminable Classics, 1998. Violence in Richard Wrights Black Boy Essay -- Richard Wright Black BViolence in Richard Wrights Black Boy Most literary works centering on adolescence do not depict it as the proverbial walk through the park a smooth transition amid the naivet6 and innocence of childhood to the morality and self -awareness of adulthood is an implausibility confined to the most basic of fairy tales and weekday morning childrens television programming. When analyzed in depth, the mat uration process of a human being is depicted almost always as some sort of struggle, retaliation against the forces of oppression regardless of their forms (including social, semipolitical or religious obstacles). More importantly, the struggle of adolescence is a struggle to understand not the workings of ones environment so much as the complexities and definitions of ones own identity. Body hair, voice undulations, wider hips these popular aspects of maturation pale in comparison with the development of self-awareness the realization that one is a unequaled human being with the right to survive and live life according to personal standards. Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson describes this delicate transitional period as a crisis of identityIt occurs in that per iod of the life cycle when each youth must forge for himself some central perspectiv e and direction, some working unity, out of the effective remnants of his childhood and the hopes of his anticipated adulthood he must detect some meaningful resemblance b etween what he has come to see in himself and what his sharpened awareness tels him others judge and expect him to be. In some young people, in some classes, at some periods in history, this crisis of identity wil be minimal in other people, classes, and periods the crisis wil be clearly marked off as a critical pe... ...nt in the future can one possibly change his or her downtrodden situation, can mold, image and tune their lives with al the freedom that comes from possessing an individual identity. Works CitedElison, Ralph. Invisible Man . New York Vintage, 1995. Erikson, Erik. Young Man Luther. New York Norton, 1962.Howe, Irving. Black Boys and Native Sons, CriticalEssays on Richard Wright. ed. Yoshinobu Hakutani. capital of Massachusetts G.K. Hal and C o., 1982. 39 -47. Hurston, Zora Neale. Mules and Men . N ew York Harper Perennial, 1990. Kinnamon, Kenneth and Michael Fabre. How Richard Wright Looks at Black Boy, Conversations with Richard Wright. Jackson University Press of Mississippi, 1993 . 63-66.Margolies, Edward. The Art of Richard Wright. Carbondale Southern Ilinois University Press, 1969.Wright, Richard. Black Boy . New York Perennial Classics, 1998.