Black Boy: SparkNotes Literature Guide by SparkNotes

Author:SparkNotes [Sparknotes Editors]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Study Guides
ISBN: 9781411474154
Publisher: Spark
Published: 2014-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

Summary: Chapter 7

During the summer before eighth grade, Richard works as a water boy and brick gatherer in the local brickyard. One afternoon the boss’s dog bites Richard, which worries him because he knows that several other workers have fallen ill after being bitten by the dog. Richard meets with the boss, but he does not take Richard seriously, claiming, “A dog bite can’t hurt a nigger.” Fortunately, though the wound gets inflamed, it heals on its own in a few days.

Richard starts the eighth grade, depressed that his education has furnished him with no skills to help him earn a living. Though he dwells on racism and can only think of it in terms of the large-scale, universal injustice it represents, his classmates limit their discussion of racism to individual, personal wrongs they have experienced.

Richard writes a short story called “The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre” and persuades the local black paper to print it. His classmates cannot understand why he has written and published a story simply because he wanted to do so. Richard’s family is likewise unreceptive and hostile—Granny and Addie equate literary fiction with lies, while Ella thinks that Richard’s writing will lead people to think he has a weak mind and thus will not want to hire him. The newspaper editor is literally the only person who encourages him. Wright muses that if he had known then how many obstacles he would eventually have to overcome to become a writer, he would have abandoned his quest.

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