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A 4 page essay that draws on sources to discuss the theme of lynching in Richard Wright's Black Boy and how this symbolically represented the culture of violence that kept African American subservient in the pre-Civil Rights era South. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
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4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KL9_khlynblboy.doc
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listed below. Citation styles constantly change, and these examples may not contain the most recent updates. Wrights Black Boy and Lynching Research
Compiled By - April, 2011 In his autobiography Black Boy, Richard Wright employs the circumstances of his life as
a background that makes it possible to discuss the personal characteristics that enabled African Americans growing up in the southern United States in the first half of the twentieth century
to find meaning in life (Ellison 61). Examination of Black Boy indicates that this purpose was influenced by the omnipresent threat of violence, as whites used violence as the main
tool for maintaining the social status quo, in which blacks were expected to be subservient. Wright pictures life in the South as a society that had strictly defined ideas about
the proper role and environment for both whites and blacks. Within this cultural context, there was relative safety for Negroes as long as they remained within these culturally established boundaries
and suppressed any sign of individuality. Ralph Ellison comments that "Lynchings have occurred because Negroes painted their homes" (Ellison 61). A lynching could result from any number of perceived infractions
of the culturally expected standard of servility to which whites held blacks. A lynching might result from " a look, a wrong attitude, sexual suspicion, sport, or fun," as whites
participated in "violence against blacks without a second thought" (Wilmot 17). The ramifications of violence as a way to control behavior are evident throughout Black Boy, yet Wright also indicates
the tension that this creates, which begins to affect the individual even in childhood. Lynching was particularly a common occurrence after World War I, as whites feared that black
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