Black Boy

In the conclusion of this chapter is a summary of Wright's philosophy on environment and humanity. It is a vision of society that encompasses the whole book, his whole childhood, and the people in it. Through his father's life he witnesses history and the present the continuing effects of slavery on the children of slaves and their children too. The humiliated, disrupted lives of blacks under slavery did not end with emancipation. Although the people endured, they did so without the benefits of a civilized society. Civilization was left in Africa. All the traditions, habits, laws, and loyalties of a civilized society were removed from black people when they arrived as slaves in the New World. They were forced to live at the most elemental level. And Richard's father represents to him the effects of history slavery on the individual. Later he will forgive his father for neglecting his family, but it will not be a Christian forgiving; rather, it will be because of historical, Marxist reasons. This Marxist attitude is fundamental to the entire book and forms the basis for the Wright School of Literature. Naturalism is the aesthetic form the attitude takes because it excludes any preconceived ideas of morality. The narrator simply presents the facts, as history simply presents the facts, and they must speak for themselves.