Seeking Salvation in a Naturalistic Universe: Richard Wright’s Use of His Southern Religious Background in Black Boy (American Hunger)

Apartheid, Crime, and Interracial Violence in Black Boy

“…While Wright is skeptical about the possibility of escaping the hegemonic structures of White supremacy in Native Son , in BB he sees the appropriation of discourse as a possible leeway to self-liberation. Wright’s reading and writing deepen his inward life, broaden his vision, and empower him to see his own life in salvific terms (Butler, 2009, p. 52). His life is a testimony to the challenges endured by African Americans denied a living space in the racist South.…”

“…When Richard burns the house (which is a way of transferring his own frustration to his immediate environment), his mother beats him unconscious, with the approval of the rest of the family including grandmother, in spite of her religious disposition. Implicit in grandmother’s response is Wright’s conviction that Christianity is just as authoritarian as communism, “a dangerous fantasy for oppressed people, the opiate of the masses, because it dissipates their energies and distracts them from understanding and reforming the real world” (Butler, 2009, p. 58). The conflict between Richard, the unbelieving “heathen,” and grandmother, the Adventist, is a struggle for power.…”

“…However, Richard emerges from the hell of American racism to experience a kind of salvation through the exercise of will and spirit. He transcends a world that imprisoned the soul of his father and crushed the spirit of his grandfather, achieving a liberating “new life” as a major American writer (Butler, 2009, p. 57). Fabre (1985) observes that if he “had stayed in the South, Wright, the great writer could have ended up a sharecropper like his father” (p. 80).…”