Which excerpt from Black Boy best demonstrates the idea that Wright’s family feels frustrated and trapped in their financial situation?
Read the excerpt from Black Boy . Finally I heard my mother’s name called; she rose and began weeping so copiously that she could not talk for a few moments; at last she managed to say that her husband had deserted her and her two children, that her children were hungry, that they stayed hungry, that she worked, that she was trying to raise them alone. Then my father was called; he came forward jauntily, smiling. He tried to kiss my mother, but she turned away from him. Which best describes the author’s purpose in including this anecdote?
Read the excerpt from Black Boy . When I awakened one morning my mother told me that we were going to see a judge who would make my father support me and my brother. An hour later all three of us were sitting in a huge crowded room. I was overwhelmed by the many faces and the voices which I could not understand. High above me was a white face which my mother told me was the face of the judge. Across the huge room sat my father, smiling confidently, looking at us. My mother warned me not to be fooled by my father’s friendly manner; she told me that the judge might ask me questions, and if he did I must tell him the truth. I agreed, yet I hoped that the judge would not ask me anything. Which details from the excerpt best indicates that Wright was fairly young when this event takes place?
Read the excerpt from Black Boy . “I’ll take that poker and hit you!” I blurted at my father. He looked at my mother and laughed louder. “You told him to say that,” he said. “Don’t say such things, Richard,” my mother said. “You ought to be dead,” I said to the strange woman. The woman laughed and threw her arms about my father’s neck. I grew ashamed and wanted to leave. “How can you starve your children?” my mother asked. “Let Richard stay with me,” my father said. “Do you want to stay with your father, Richard?” my mother asked. “No,” I said. “You’ll get plenty to eat,” he said. “I’m hungry now,” I told him. “But I won’t stay with you.” What does the excerpt convey about Wright’s personality as a child?
Read the passage from Black Boy . “It’s not for me,” my mother was saying. “It’s for your children that I’m asking you for money.” “I ain’t got nothing,” my father said, laughing. “Come here, boy,” the strange woman called to me. I looked at her and did not move. “Give him a nickel,” the woman said. “He’s cute.” Wright most likely included this anecdote in order to
Read the excerpt from Black Boy . My mother fell ill and the problem of food became an acute, daily agony. Hunger was with us always. Sometimes the neighbors would feed us or a dollar bill would come in the mail from my grandmother. It was winter and I would buy a dime’s worth of coal each morning from the corner coalyard and lug it home in paper bags. For a time I remained out of school to wait upon my mother, then Granny came to visit us and I returned to school. Through his personal experience, which social issue is Wright emphasizing?
Read the excerpt from Black Boy . Then my father was called; he came forward jauntily, smiling. He tried to kiss my mother, but she turned away from him. I only heard one sentence of what he said. “I’m doing all I can, Your Honor,” he mumbled, grinning. It had been painful to sit and watch my mother crying and my father laughing and I was glad when we were outside in the sunny streets. Back at home my mother wept again and talked complainingly about the unfairness of the judge who had accepted my father’s word. What societal norm of the early twentieth century does this excerpt reflect?
Read the excerpt from Black Boy . Again I was faced with choices I did not like, but I finally agreed. After all, my hate for my father was not so great and urgent as my hate for the orphan home. My mother held to her idea and one night a week or so later I found myself standing in a room in a frame house. My father and a strange woman were sitting before a bright fire that blazed in a grate. My mother and I were standing about six feet away, as though we were afraid to approach them any closer. Wright explains his difficult choice in this excerpt in order to show that he was
Which excerpt from Black Boy best illustrates the effect that society has on Wright’s father?
Read the excerpt from Black Boy . That day a quarter of a century later when I visited him on the plantation—he was standing against the sky, smiling toothlessly, his hair whitened, his body bent, his eyes glazed with dim recollection, his fearsome aspect of twenty-five years ago gone forever from him—I was overwhelmed to realize that he could never understand me or the scalding experiences that had swept me beyond his life and into an area of living that he could never know. What does the excerpt most clearly demonstrate about Wright's attitude toward his father?
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