Isolation In Richard Wright's Black Boy

In Black Boy Richard Wrights experience with isolation suggests that because he has been isolated by everyone in his life, including his own family, that he has stopped believing that there are kind people in the world, reminding us that we should never lose hope in the fact that things can always improve and we should always remember that every bad thing always end, even if it seems like it will last forever.

Wright is standing outside the clothes shop where he works, and he sees his white boss and his son drag a petrified looking black woman out of their car, past a white police officer, and several Caucasian passers-by, none of whom even bat an eye, and into the store Wright hears the screams of the woman who stumbles out bloody and beaten. …show more content…
Wright recalls “this was a gesture of kindness, indicating that, even if they had beat the black woman, they would not beat me if I kept my mouth shut.” (p )Wright experiences this act of benevolence, not out of the goodness of this man heart, but since his boss has ulterior motives. He is only showing this humanity towards Richard because he wants to acquire something from Wright. This event proves to Wright that there aren’t any nice people, who are just kind to people for the sake being kind. So we continue Wright’s journey for benevolent people. Wright finds a little hope in people when he is living in Memphis, and he is staying with the very compassionate, but simple-minded Ms. Moss and Bess. He is shocked that, unlike his family, they are extremely open and kind towards each other and himself. Wright explains his feelings by saying “I had learned to know these people better in five hours than I had learned to know my own family in five years […] I learned the full degree to which my life at home had cut me off, not only from white people but from Negros as well.”(p ) This passage reveals just how terribly his family had treated him his entire life. His family was so horrible to him that he had no idea