Abstract
This article argues that a fuller understanding of Richard Wright’s father arrives from locating him in his specific social, cultural, and economic setting. Because Wright fails to do this, critics have seen Nathan Wright as an irresponsible black man, rather than as an individual struggling with his peculiar Jim Crow environment. Nowhere in his autobiography, Black Boy, in fact, does Wright present a “positive” image of black men, save an uncle, who is murdered when he steps too far outside his “place” in Southern organic society.
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Williams, H.M. Understanding the bag the cat is in: Father and son in richard wright’s. Journal of African American Men 1, 92–98 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02692095
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02692095