Analysis of the Black Characters in Richard Wright's 'Uncle Tom's Children'.

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ABSTRACT

Tugas Akhir ini ditulis untuk memenuhi salah satu persyaratan kelulusan sebagai Sarjana Sastra. Saya memilih kumpulan cerita pendek Uncle Tom’s Children, karya Richard Wright untuk dianalisis di dalam Tugas Akhir ini. Saya akan membahas empat tokoh utama berkulit hitam dan bagaimana mereka bereaksi terhadap diskriminasi kulit putih.

Richard Wright sangat piawai dalam menggambarkan setiap tokoh utama dalam setiap cerita sehingga mereka tampak seperti dalam kehidupan nyata. Hampir semua tokoh mempunyai sifat berani bertindak, peduli kepada sesama dan setia kawan. Di sisi lain, mereka seringkali dihinggapi perasaan takut karena telah berbuat sesuatu terhadap kulit putih.

Di dalam Uncle Tom’s Children, setiap tokoh utama digambarkan mengalami perlakuan diskriminatif dari orang kulit putih, dan Richard Wright sebagai pengarang menggambarkan juga bahwa mereka tidak tinggal diam, tetapi mereka berani memberikan reaksi terhadap perlakuan orang kulit putih. Namun, betapapun kerasnya usaha orang kulit hitam berjuang untuk mempertahankan hidup mereka, pada akhirnya mereka tetap menjadi korban, hanya karena mereka adalah orang kulit hitam.

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APPENDICES

SYNOPSIS OF UNCLE TOM’S CHILDREN

“Big Boy Leaves Home”

There are four black boys whose names are Big Boy, Buck, Lester and Bobo. One day, all of them want to swim in a creek which lies in a white man’s property. When they are swimming, a white woman finds them and she calls her husband, an army officer. Her husband comes and gets angry with them. The four black boys feel scared, so they decide to leave. The white man shoots Buck and Lester. And then he tries to kill Big Boy and Bobo. Big Boy tries to protect Bobo from being killed. Finally, Big Boy shoots the white man. Big Boy and Bobo run away.

When Big Boy comes home and tells what has happened to his parents, his parents decide that Big Boy must leave home to hide, because they know that the whites will be looking for him. When Big Boy is in his hiding place, Bobo is caught by the whites and Big Boy sees the whites burn Bobo to death. At last Big Boy can escape from the whites.

“Down By The Riverside”

A black man whose name is Brother Mann needs a boat to take his pregnant wife to the hospital. Mann tells his cousin, Bob, to buy a boat, but Bob steals one from a white man. Mann uses that boat as he has no choice. However,

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on their way the white man who owns the boat sees Brother Mann and recognizes his boat. The white man gets angry with Mann and wants his boat back. And then the white man starts shooting at Mann. Mann shoots him back and the white man is dead. Unfortunately, when they reach the hospital, his wife has already passed away. Along with another black man, Brinkley, Mann is asked to rescue the people in the Riverside. They turn out to be the woman whose husband has been killed, and her children. Although he has a chance to kill them, he decides to rescue them, instead. Later, the soldiers catch him. Before the soldiers kill him, he tries to run away. However, the soldiers shoot him and he dies in the river’s edge.

“Long Black Song”

Silas is a hard worker. He has bought a farm so that he can grow his own crops like white men. One day, when he comes back from selling his crop, he finds the fact that his wife has slept with a white salesmen. He gets very angry.

In the morning, the white salesman comes back. Silas whips him and then shoots him to death. Silas knows that if he kills the white man, he can never be free. He waits for the whites who want to take revenge on him. Later, Silas has a gunfight with the white people who come to get him out of his house. In the end he dies when the whites burn his house. Silas never gets out of his house when the house collapses.

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“Bright and Morning Star”

An old woman Sue, has two sons. They are members of communist party. Sug, his first son, has been imprisoned. Sue waits for her another son, Johnny-Boy, to come home. A white fellow communist, Reva, who is the daughter of a major organizer, stops by to tell Sue that the sheriff has discovered about the meeting at Lem’s and Sue must tell the comrades about it so the sheriff can not catch them. And then Johnny-Boy comes home. Sue sends him to tell his comrades not to go to the Lem’s for the meeting.

Later, the sheriff comes to her house looking for Johnny-Boy. He slaps and hits her because she does not want to tell where Johnny-Boy is. When she gains her consciousness, she tells everything to Booker. However, Booker is the sheriff’s informer. Sue realizes that she is the only person who can save the comrades and her son. She soon takes the risk to save them. Remembering the sheriff’s words, she brings a white sheet and wraps a gun in it. Then she goes through the woods to stop Booker from telling the sheriff. The sheriff tortures Johnny-Boy in front of her. When Booker comes, Sue shoots him before he mentions anything about the comrades. And then, the sheriff shoots Johnny-Boy and Sue.

BIOGRAPHY OF RICHARD WRIGHT

Richard Wright was born near Natchez, Mississippi, on September 4, 1908. His father, Nathaniel, was an illiterate sharecropper. His mother, Ella Wilson, was a well-educated school teacher. Their poverty forced them to move to Memphis when Richard was six years old.

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Richard Wright attended a local public school for a few years. In spring 1924, the Southern Register, a local black newspaper printed “The Voodoo of Hell’s Half Acre”, which is his first story. From 1925 to 1927, he worked several menial jobs in Jackson and Memphis. During the time, he continued writing.

In 1927 he moved to Chicago. In 1937 he moved to New York and became the editor of Daily worker. In 1938 his four short stories were published together as Uncle Tom’s Children. His first novel Native Son was published in 1940. In 1939 he married a white dancer, Dhimah Rose Meadman, but then they separated. In 1941 he married Ellen Poplar, a white member of Communist Party, and they had 2 daughters whose names are Julia (1942) and Rachel (1949).

In his last years he was plagued by illness. After his death on November 28, 1960, another collection of his short stories Eight Men was published. Black Boy was published in 1945. The importance of his works comes from the impact of his ideas not from his style and technique. His most significant contribution was his desire to accurately portray the blacks to the white readers and destroy the white myth of patient, humorous, and submissive black man.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The existence of racialism in America started before the independence of America in 1776. Slavery was then one of the most real forms of discrimination in America. Later there was segregation between black and white people. Long after the Emancipation in 1865, racialism in the USA still exists. The black still do not have full freedom as American Citizens.

‘Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations, as in

determining policy or interpreting events’ (http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/r/r0006500.html). This means racialism

emphasizes on the differences between race which can sometimes lead to prejudices, misunderstandings and a belief that one race is superior to the others. In the USA, the whites are the superior race whereas the blacks are the inferior one.

One of the twentieth-century American authors who deal with racialism in their works is Richard Wright. He is a black writer who was born in Mississippi, one of the states where racialism were commonly practised, especially during the late nineteenth century. Since the author was born and

Maranatha Christian University

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lived there I believe he knew very well how black people were treated by the whites. Wright was also seen as the seminal figure in Black Revolution, and he wanted to change the stereotype of the black people from submissive to not submissive people, as he described clearly in his short stories Uncle Tom’s Children. “The reference in the title to Uncle Tom is to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the negro who has become the stereotype of the submissive black. But Wright made it clear that Uncle Tom’s children were not submissive.” (Robert, 1973: 401) I am of the opinion that this is an interesting aspect to discuss in my thesis.

In Uncle Tom’s Children, I can see how white people treat black people. The blacks are treated so badly as if they were not human beings. This book also tells about how they react towards the unfair treatment. Therefore, in this thesis I want to analyse the portrayal of the black people who become victims of racialism. In these short stories every black character is described as a brave person although they suffer from the act of racialism. They try hard to get their rights; they want to fight the mental and physical oppressions which they get from the white people. Through their response, the readers will know the characteristics of each black character in the story.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The problems which I would like to analyse are:

1. How does the author portray each one of the black characters in the short stories?

2. Why does the author portray the black characters in such a way?

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PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

Based on the problems above, the purposes of the study are:

1. To know how the author portrays each one of the black characters in the short stories.

2. To know the reason why the author portrays the black characters in such a way.

METHOD OF RESEARCH

The method of research used is library research. I begin my research by reading the primary text Uncle Tom’s Children, written by Richard Wright. Then I read several books that can be used to support the research and other related information from the Internet to help me with my analysis. Finally I draw some conclusions of what has been discussed.

ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS

This thesis consists of three chapters, which are preceded by the Preface. Chapter one is the Introduction, which contains the Background of the Study, the Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research, and the Organization of the Thesis. In Chapter two, I present the analysis of the black characters in Richard Wright’s Uncle Tom’s Children. And the last chapter is Chapter three, which contains the conclusion of the analysis. This thesis ends with the Bibliography, which presents the list of reference books and various sources that I have used, and the Appendices,

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which present the synopses of four short stories in Uncle Tom’s Children and the biography of the author.

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CHAPTER THREE

CONCLUSION

Having analysed the black characters in Richard Wright’s short stories, Uncle Tom’s Children, I find some similarities among the four of them.

Firstly, the four black characters are portrayed as people who all have feelings and emotion. Big Boy in “Big Boy Leave Home” is portrayed as a common carefree and brave boy. Mann in “Down by the Riverside” is described as a caring, responsible and brave man. Silas in “Long Black Song” is a courageous person; and Sue in “Bright and Morning Star” is a smart, caring, loyal and brave woman. All the black characters are caring, loyal, brave, and sometimes feel scared. It is obvious that Richard Wright is skillful in creating lifelike characters.

Secondly, Richard Wright is smart in using not only adult blacks but also a woman and children as the protagonist. And they are all brave in giving reaction towards the whites’ unfair treatment. I get the impression that the author wants to put forward the idea that even black woman and children are not submissive, as Carlsen, G. Robert (1973:401) states in American Literature Themes and Writers Second Edition, that ‘Wright made it clear that Uncle Tom’s children were not submissive.’ He wants to change the whites’ stereotype of black people.

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Furthermore, through what the characters have experienced, Richard Wright wants to show that the blacks have tried hard to survive. However, no matter how hard they try, they always become victims of the whites’ discrimination. The whites as superior people think that they can do whatever they want to blacks, but if the blacks react towards the whites’ unfair treatment, there will be no mercy for them. Almost all of the protagonists in Richard Wright’s short stories I have discussed have to die in the hands of the whites.

Besides similarities, I also find a difference among the four short stories. Richard Wright creates a different ending in “Big Boy Leaves Home” from the other three stories. Big Boy succeeds in running away from the whites who haunt him. Nevertheless, he still has to bear the effect; he feels traumatic and afraid. In my opinion, the author wants to show that although the black boy succeeds in running away, he is not really free. It is only his body which is free, but not his soul. Wherever black people try to run away, they will always feel afraid and traumatic. Black people will not feel free fully because in the end their soul will be dead also if they always live a traumatic life.

Having analysed the black characters in Richard Wright Uncle Tom’s Children, I am very much impressed with Mann, the protagonist of “Down by the Riverside”. He is a caring person. He is willing to help other people in need although he himself has just lost his beloved wife, who passed away on the way to the hospital. Unfortunately, his good deed cannot make the whites give mercy to him because he is black. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that the blacks are human beings who have to be treated equal because they have the same right as other people.

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I also learn that long after the abolishment of slavery in the USA, racial discrimination is still a common practice. I feel pity for the blacks who, due to their skin-colour, have to suffer or even to die when they react towards the whites’ unfair treatment.

Richard Wright has brought up this issue very clearly in Uncle Tom’s Children, which makes the book worth reading and analysing

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reference

Carlsen, G. Robert. American Literature Themes and Writers Second Edition. San Francisco: McGraw-Hill, Inc, 1973.

Website

Racialism: definition,usage and pronounciation. The American Heritage.

1996-2007. 20 September 2006 <http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/r/r0006500.html>

The Mississippi Writers Page. Wed, January 28, 2004. MWP: Richard Wright. 20 September 2006 <http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/wright_richard>

Primary Text

Wright, Richard. Uncle Tom’s Children. New York: HarperPerennial Collins Publisher, Inc, 1993.

Analysis of the Black Characters in Richard Wright's 'Uncle Tom's Children'.

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE ………....

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS ……….. ii

ABSTRACT ………...

iv

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER TWO: ANALYSIS OF BLACK

CHARACTERS IN UNCLE TOM’S

CHILDREN ……… 5

CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSION ……… 19

BIBLIOGRAPHY ……… 22

APPENDICES: