Parenthesis Passage

Starting with part two of Black Boy, Wright uses the technique of making analytical comments through passages in parenthesis. In Chapter 15 Wright in concerned about not having found himself yet in his life. Wright has just moved to Chicago in the North and must learn that his view of the separation of white and black is based on his southern values. These values cause him to be suspicious of whites and constantly feel a sense of racial attack. He says that he would rather live in a feudal system because it would have defined him, limited him, ranked him, and would have given him a function in society as opposed to living in America where “culturally the Negro represents a paradox” (272). In America, Wright sees the irony that even though blacks are part of the nation, they are excluded from the culture since they are not given the same opportunity and are considered socially and intellectually inferior.

Wright also talks about how “color hate” has defined black life and how this hatred forms. This prejudice against skin color has made black life socially below that of white people and has caused black people to have self-hate. He talks about the reason why blacks hate themselves is because they are in a predominately white culture that hates them. Since they feel all this hatred towards them, it makes these black people hate themselves. They hate the fact that their lives are so thoroughly conquered by the whites that their lives are conditioned by the white’s attitudes. This in turn causes the blacks to hate the whites for evoking their self-hatred. This self-hatred causes blacks to be at war with themselves and with reality. It makes them hate themselves for thinking they can get somewhere in life when in reality they can not. None of their dreams are possible as the blacks have been molded into a second-class life form created by whites and the blacks do little to rise above this situation.

The quote I liked most from this chapter was “And, slowly, it was upon exactly that nothingness that my mind began to dwell, that constant sense of wanting without having, of being hated without reason” (267). Wright is just beginning to realize that he wants to write about the plight and suffering of the Negro race. Wright wants to explain and express the unconscious suffering that blacks have endured; he wants to reveal their “psyche pain” caused by their environment. He wants to show them as humans and as an important part of American culture.