Black Boy Thesis
...t early morning when I had held Uncle Tom at bay with my razors. Thought I must have seemed brutal and desperate to him, I had never thought of myself as being so, and now I was appalled at how I was regarded.” (173) Richard’s realization of his loneliness and isolation only drives him more to the desire to succeed and establish himself in the world. After his graduation from school, Richard went on the hunt for jobs. He couldn’t quite hold any jobs he got because of the way he acted. He heard all the boys talking about jobs they had found in the north, and Richard asked them why they never told him of the job openings. They just never thought to tell him. Richard even told himself that he had never really made friends with any of his classmates. He only saw them regularly at school and never made any attempts to connect with them. The only person he could blame for his isolation was himself. He has gone through the young years of his life barely being fed and dependent on himself. He had no real family intervention in his life except for the beatings he got from his parents and relatives. His home was never in one place; it was wherever any money was at. Richard’s house was never a real home to him. At one point, his house burned down and psychologically, that’s how his future homes would be like. Richard has gone from a burnt home, to his Grandma’s home, to an orphanage, to an Uncle’s house and then back to his own home. His home has been replaced many times due to economic stress and family hardships. Starvation would drive him to walk the streets and stay out late at night. He ran away from his home just to avoid the dismal thoughts of hunger. “I saw Uncle Clark shaking his head vigorously at Mr. Burden, but he was too late. At once my imagination began to weave ghosts. I did not actually believe in ghosts, but I had been taught that there was a God and I had given a kind of uneasy assent to His existence, and if there was a God, then surely there must be ghosts. In a moment I built up intense loathing for sleeping in the room where the boy had died. Rationally I knew that the dead boy could not bother me, but he had become alive for me in a way that I could not dismiss.” (93) Richard never really liked the places where he lived. He never truly understood how racism worked and how he was affected. However he did understand the racism and its effects to an extent, an extent that was clear enough for him to leave. He heard tales of the north, the freedom that rang there and he longed for it. He worked, he stole and he even ...