Richard stealing

Eli Pardue
3/7/08
AP Lang Comp
LaMags

Explain Wright's moral dilemma in stealing. Is he justified in his decision?

When Richard contemplates stealing, he feels that if he steals, he will only reinforce the stereotype that had been placed upon blacks by the whites. He would only acknowledge the subservience that he so hates so much. By playing into exactly what they expect him to do, he justifies all of their suspicions of black worker boys stealing. More than that, he falls into the system that he has tried to escape for his entire socially conscious life. When he finally makes the decision to steal, he feels guilty, and promises only to steal until he has enough money to leave the south and head north.
Richard is both justified and not justified in making his decision to steal. He figures that at his current wages, minus the cost of living, it would take him two years to save up enough money to move north. With the scam that he took part in at the movie theatre, he made that money in less than a month. However, Richard also reinforces that black stereotype and creates more grounds for prejudice in the south. Despite this fact, Richard did the only thing he could do to further his social status and improve his quality of life.

Go to school

Eli Pardue
2/20/08
AP Lang Comp
LaMags

To what extent do you agree that we don’t really need to go to school?

I do not at all agree with Gatto. I think that school is on of the most important parts of a child’s social, mental, and physical development. Gatto explains his view through frustration at the school system he worked in. This is not how all school systems work. It is certainly not how University High School works. He does not like the school systems because he believes that they are too government controlled and reliant. I think that this is a valid point, but he does not suggest a way to make the system better.
Schools expose children to other children, which forms social habits that are an absolute necessity in everyday interaction with others. Without social interaction that all children are exposed to in school, everyone may as will portray symptoms of autism due to lack of social development. I think that the education that is provided is also invaluable. Teachers are necessary to fill the minds of the students with information that is relevant to the topic at hand.
Without schools, I think that our society would lose almost all of its organization. Children would not have been exposed to a rigid schedule, and they would not be used to one in the workplace. And in the future, if nobody had any exposure to how work is supposed to be done, how will the work place operate? Society would fall into anarchy without school.

living in the south

Eli Pardue
3/4/07
AP Lang Comp
LaMags

What does Griggs mean by ‘learn how to live in the south’?

Throughout his childhood, Richard established a mindset that he would not let others tell him what was right or wrong, and he would not let others boss him around or treat him unfairly based on his race. This is clearly portrayed by his hostility towards getting punished by his mother, grandmother, Aunt Addie, and Uncle Tom. Also, and more pertaining to the particular question, it is shown in Richard’s naivety towards the social status of white people when he was young.
When Griggs says that Richards needs to “learn how to live in the South,” he means that Richard needs to through out all of the moral and ethical rules that he has set up in his own head and play along with the demands of society. In other words, he needs to recognize that, in the South, white people are superior to blacks, and he needs to act accordingly. Richard’s contempt at the ludicrous societal standards of his childhood explains why he was unable to hold a job over the summer.
The last part of learning how to live in the South is shown at the end of the chapter. Through Griggs, Richard obtains a job with a Yankee stenographer, Mr. Crane. Richard was treated fairly by the Northern man, and he also acted “appropriately” as a black man working for white men. However, Richard was still subjected to the cruelty and hate of the southern white man by one of the men who worked for Crane. Richard did not give him a formal title when addressing him once, and was punished by being scared out of his job. The last par of learning how to live in the south is taking the white man’s hate in stride.

speech

Eli Pardue
3/3/08
AP Lang Comp
LaMags

Is Wright justified in refusing to say the speech?

I think that Richard is indeed justified in refusing to give the speech written for him, but I also think that he was foolish for not reciting it. The principle wrote the speech for Richard not just because he wanted Richard to look intelligent as the class valedictorian, but also because he wanted his school to look professional in the eyes of the superintendent. However, it does not make sense to me why he asked Richard to write a speech of his own if he did not plan on letting his recite it. I think that the only reason the principle would ask him to write his own is to prevent him from feeling like a tool for the principle from the get go. This way, he was able to retain some dignity before throwing it to the dogs. I think Richard was right in essentially telling the principle “screw you” because it is his right to speak his own words at his graduation because he is celebrating his own academic accomplishments, not the accomplishments of the principle. It was also foolish to refuse the speech written for him because it put his future in jeopardy. He had the sensible option of working as a schoolteacher on wages that he could use to support a family. Instead he threw that opportunity away because of pride.

gratified in writing

Eli Pardue
2/27/08
AP Lang Comp
LaMags

Why does Wright feel gratified after sharing his writing?

Richard was forced to pray and pray every day for an hour. Granny and Aunt Addie constantly berated him on the state of his soul. They said that God would look poorly on them if they had a non-believer in the house. Richard did not care for church. He had never felt God before, and was convinced that he never would feel God. Richard problem with believing is summed up in his quote, “If laying down my life could stop the suffering in the world, I’d do it. But I don’t believe anything can stop it.” Richard felt compelled to write a hymn of his own in hope that it would be good enough for Granny to stop tailing him on the subject of his soul, and forgive him for his misdoings. He was not adept at writing verses and hymns, he soon learned. Richard had an Indian girl from a book on his mind, and wrote of her. He felt gratified in his writing because it was the first thing that he had created that was completely his, and more than that, and extension of himself and his emotions. He had the young woman next door read it. She did not understand the depth of his writing and looked at him with a confused and amused face. Richard felt gratified because she could not fully comprehend the emotion and felling that he had put into his writing.

cultural heritage

Eli Pardue
2/25/08
AP Lang Comp
LaMags

Wright says it was his ‘cultural heritage’ to dislike Jews. Relate that to his own experiences.

Richard had a predisposed cultural hatred towards Jews that was ingrained in his cultural philosophy by society. He has a hatred for them because all the students were taught in school that Jews were Christ killers. This singled the Jews in his neighborhood out, making them easy targets for ridicule. It is also worth noting that this time period is when the stereotypes of Jews being rich and wealthy began to come forth. Jews were mainly immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, and, as immigrants are “supposed” to do, they worked very hard to get ahead, and oftentimes became prominent lawyers and bankers. I think this fact may have been a reason for Richard resentment of them.
Richard had felt much of the same hatred from white people that the Jews felt from the black residents of the neighborhood. Much as it was the cultural heritage of Richard to ridicule the Jews, it was the cultural heritage of the white people to ridicule Richard. All the way back to the root of slavery, an animosity between blacks and whites had existed. There is also a distinct relation to the way Richard is treated by his parents and the way he treats Jews. His was of treating Jews was with mocking and taunting, but it is the same way that he looks down upon them as his mother looks down upon him when he is being beaten.

Uncle Tom

Eli Pardue
3/2/08
AP Lang Comp
LaMags

Why is Wright so angry with his Uncle Tom?

Richard’s anger with Uncle Tom is provoked by Uncle Tom’s anger with Richard. He said that Richard was being insolent, how I did not understand, but he proceeded to threaten Richard with a terrible beating. Richard was dumbfounded by his Uncle’s reaction to something as simple as telling him the time. He did not believe that his Uncle would really beat him, just threaten to do so. Thinking logically, Richard could not believe that his uncle would be so insulted by his simple answer, but was set that he would not let his uncle beat him. He concluded this on the grounds that his Uncle was not at all his guardian, he did not live with his uncle, he had only known his uncle for a few days, and his uncle had never had any say in his rearing. He was a contributing member of the household, paying some of his earnings to his grandmother, and he had dome absolutely nothing to merit that kind of behavior from his uncle. Richard was upset with his uncle because his uncle had no authority to beat him. In addition, after Tom had given up on Richard, he symbolized the way his white employers looked down at him as someone deserving of pity and contempt. This is why Richard continued to berate his uncle as nothing more than one who makes chairs for white people to sit on.