Richard Wright: The Power of Words

I really enjoyed doing this project on Richard Wright. I looked at his stories through historical criticism and biographical criticism. He wrote during the Harlem Renaissance, which was a flourishing time for writers, especially African American writers, to express their views. I'm including some paragraphs from my paper which I think will help describe Wright's unique short stories. If I had to recommend one of them, it would be "Bright and Morning Star" which is the last story in his collection of short stories, Uncle Tom's Cabin. This story embodies all the messages Wright was trying to convey. "Freedom belongs t the strong" is how Wright chose to end both the story, and the entire collection. I admire Wright because everything he wrote was somewhat of a suggestive message. He was, and still is, extremely influential because of the power of his words.

The power of words proved to be extremely influential at the start of the Harlem Renaissance. After the fall of the stock market, when the Works Progress Administration started hiring people for public relief, there was an organization called the Writer’s Project (Brown 1). The program employed sixty-five hundred writers to travel to twenty-six different states and write biographies on everyone they met (Brown 1). Many flocked to Harlem, which began the massive immersion of creativity in the “black capital” (Brown 2). Some describe the Harlem Renaissance as being, “…promoted by a very small band of intellectuals who had migrated to Harlem along with thousands of ordinary folks who flocked there too” (Brown 2). The Harlem Renaissance was a time when African-Americans found a way to express themselves not only through writing, but through art and music as well.

Richard Wright was among the first African-American writers to obtain national recognition for his writings. A “poster-child” for the Harlem Renaissance, Wright began his career writing for the Federal Writer’s Project, which consequently forced him to endure numerous moves. Wright is well known for bringing his life into his writings. Many aspects of his history can be seen in any one of his literary works. He became interested in the Communist Party in the mid 1920s; when he moved to Chicago in 1927 with the Illinois Federal Writer’s project, he began attending a Communist Party-sponsored organization called the John Reed Club (Shuman 1694). Wright supported those who were a part of the Communist Party because they were working diligently to improve ongoing racial discrimination. One of the prominent Communist newspapers, the Daily Worker, hired Wright to be the Harlem editor in 1937 (Shuman 1694). During this time his short story collection, Uncle Tom’s Children, was published and received a five hundred dollar prize from the Federal Writer’s Project for being the “best work” (Shuman 1694). Wright made it a point to exploit the unknown poverty and racism going on in the South. His characters are often suppressed in more ways than just racially. Wright’s imagery and use of figurative language can be seen in all of his published short stories.

In all of these short stories, Wright explores different ways of dealing with racial oppression. In the beginning stories such as “Big Boy Leaves Home” and “Down By the Riverside”, the protagonists attempt to run away. Every attempt leaves them dead. Wright is perhaps suggesting the black man during this time period could not flee from racial prejudice, no matter the circumstances. In the later stories, “Bright and Morning Star” and “Fire and Cloud”, the reader experiences a different way of handling an inevitable situation. The characters stand their ground; they resist the oppression even though the result will be the same: death. Sue and Johnny-Boy in “Bright and Morning Star” not only stand up for themselves, but for the Communist Party as well. Sue is one of the few female characters in Wright’s works that can be admired for her willpower. McCall brings up a valid point in his criticisms stating, “When the book ends with the cry of black triumph, ‘Freedom belongs t the strong,’ we are to see it not just as the end of that story but as the point toward which all the stories have been moving” (McCall 25). Wright’s writing opened eyes to the actual occurrences taking place in the both the South and in the North. (Simply Fresh)