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. 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. Wright uses this personal experience to establish
Read the excerpt from Black Boy.We left. I had the feeling that I had had to do with something unclean. Many times in the years after that the image of my father and the strange woman, their faces lit by the dancing flames, would surge up in my imagination so vivid and strong that I felt I could reach out and touch it; I would stare at it, feeling that it possessed some vital meaning which always eluded me.Based on this excerpt, how did Wright feel about his final boyhood encounter with his father?
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.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 passage from Black Boy.I realized that, though ties of blood made us kin, though I could see a shadow of my face in his face, though there was an echo of my voice in his voice, we were forever strangers, speaking a different language, living on vastly distant planes of reality.Which best describes Wright’s attitude toward his father in this excerpt?
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