In the following excerpt, Butler analyzes how the conflicting images of motion and stagnation presented in Wright's Black Boy further the themes of human opportunity and human suffocation.
Richard Wright is noted for his trapped heroes, especially figures such as Bigger Thomas, Fred Daniels, and Cross Damon, but he has also Written powerfully of the quest for open motion. Both "The Man Who Was Almost, a Man" and "Big Boy Leaves Home" end with bittersweet images of the heroes moving vaguely North in search of new lives which mayor may not be available to them. The Long Journey concludes with its central character on "a journey that would take him far, far away" from a restrictive past toward new possibilities. These narratives evoke simultaneously allusions to the journey across the River Jordan celebrated by the.....
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