Thematic Attributes
Richard Wright incorporates intense themes of violence, power, and racial tension in his short stories “Almos a Man”(1961) and “Big Boy Leaves Home”(1938). Dave, the protagonist of “Almos a Man,” feels that he needs to secure his manhood by using a gun.
"Holding his gun in his hand, nobody could run over him; they would have to respect him.”
Wright associates symbols of violence and crime with power. In “Big Boy Leaves Home” the violent racial hate crime of mob lynching is used to reinforce racial tension. When Bobo is lynched, one of the white mobbers says that,
“AH WANNA BE THE FIRS T PUT A ROPE ON THA BLACK BASTARDS NECK” and “LES GIT SOURVINEERS”.
Wright displays interracial conflicts in violent ways to expose the disgusting reality of the lynch mobs in this time period. Wright’s short stories contain these thematic elements that confront the inequality of power distribution through the African Americans and the White people.