A recurrent response to his condition throughout the book is a series of pastoral contacts with nature. Nature serves as a balm to his injuries, and, in relation to the seasons and natural wonders, he is able to express his emotions freely. This is one of the more striking American qualities about the book reminiscent of Thomas Wolfe, Walt Whitman, Sherwood Anderson, and many others.
Just as Wright can understand his father as "a creature of the earth" who is bewildered and finally driven away from the city, so have hosts of other American writers been obsessed with the vision of an innocent, pastoral, lost world. It is a world they strive to recapture, while doubting its existence. Though none of them would deny that "violence is as American as cherry pie," there is some mysterious conviction within much American writing that there is the possibility of a pure soul and a humane personality. Nature is the medium through which these writers try to symbolize this pure state be it the nature of earth or the nature of man. The most lyrical passages in Black Boy are invariably concerned with Richard's love of the natural world, and they stand apart both in content and style from the rest of the book, like a lovely, lonely Blues song.
Richard's relationship to the natural world is direct and simple. Outdoors, among the trees and birds, a boy can express his emotions freely. Although he is conscious of the good and the evil forces at work in the open air, he feels his individual self expand and develop naturally. He is not judged or repressed. He is just alive. For some people, it is possible to feel more at home in a tree or an empty field than indoors, among his own people. For Richard, as a boy, this is the case, and throughout the book he will return to the natural world to find metaphors for freedom and joy.
