Literature has been around for as early as 2000 BC and has been evolving since then. The beginning of literature consisted of entertaining an audience. The main purpose of the literary works of authors was to determine the most successful way to entertain the audience and by doing so authors came up with fictional stories. As time progressed, literature started to change. Authors no longer sought to entertain the audience, but wanted to express their ideas and opinions instead. The change in literature did not stop there, time continued and times changed. The ability to express an opinion started to depend on the color of skin that people had. Dark colored skin was looked down on; consequently their voices were often suppressed. The abolishment…show more content… The path of American culture was impacted through the dark and realistic writing about race and humanity that Richard Wright wrote in the 1940s by creating a change in the relationships of African Americans and white Americans. Richard Wright’s childhood had a major role in the future of his literary works. The events that he had to experience and overcome as a young boy were dark and bitter, which led him to grow up with a negative perspective on people. Wright “[W]as beaten severely for several infractions…he was beaten mentally and physically by racist employers” (Moskowitz). Wright could not finish his high school education because he needed to get a job for economic reasons. At his job he received poor treatment because of the color of his skin. Wright believed that humanity was evil and lacked kindness not only because of the people that surrounded him, but also because of the environment he was raised in. Wright grew up in the Southern part of America where he got exposed to the worse part of racism; the area where racism most prevailed. The verbal abuse and physical punches that he received constantly, led him to have a negative perspective on humanity. Wright believed that…show more content… This novel, like his previous novel, was able to bring out the true colors of the relations between African Americans and white Americans. This time, it was not done through a fictional novel, but through his own personal experiences. Richard Wright used his personal experiences in order to make a point, " Wright's mother beat him nearly to death for setting their house on fire, he ha[d] a feverish dream. ‘Huge wobbly white bags, like the full udders of cows, hang[ed] menacingly over him, and their whiteness [was] terrifying’” (Thaddeus 200).Wright used his dream and emphasized certain things, such as color, in order to make the connection with the distinct differences of color in real life, stand out. Wright mentions that the white cow udder was menacing to him in order to symbolize that white Americans were menacing to dark people like him. Wright not only emphasized color in his personal experiences throughout his novel, but he also gave a new perspective of color in the real world. Richard ”Wright deliberately reverse[d] the usual connotations Western tradition ha[d] assigned to black and white—that black is always bad and white is good” (Thaddeus). Wright showed that white Americans were not always good and that African Americans were not always bad either. Wright showed this by emphasizing the good characteristics that African Americans had and by emphasizing the
