Racial Stigma in Richard Wright’s Black Boy

Abstract

Richard Wright’s semi-autobiographical work, Black Boy, projects the issue of racial stigma. Black Boy is about the frustration and humiliation experienced by a sensitive Negro boy; it deals with the depression of the black. Wright uses himself as the protagonist to portray a society where inequality and man’s inhumanity is rampant. He openly criticizes the exclusionary policies and the politics of deprivation. For daring to challenge the racial politics and segregations, he is ostracized not only by the white but also by the Black. The narrator of the novel encounters numerous obstacles like ostracism, disappointment even in his house, racism and the highhandedness of the white. In this way, the narrator of Wright’s Black Boy suffers from double stigmatization. The pang of being ostracized and excluded from the social circle completely makes the narrator stigmatized.