“Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States”.(“Jim Crow Laws.” Wikipedia, 15 Feb. 2018.) Jim Crow laws started at the end of the Reconstruction period and ended in 1965. Jim Crow laws included black males could not shake a while males hand, blacks not being able to share bathrooms with whites, blacks had to give up their seats to whites and sit in the back of the vehicle, etc. (“What was Jim Crow.” Ferris.edu, Sept. 2012.) With Jim Crow being such a big event it led to many people speaking about it and their own experiences , Richard Wright being one of them. Wright wrote an essay and every essay has a story behind it, some stories come from personal experience and some are written
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To convey his emotional stress through the essay he uses acerbic diction. “She would smack my rump with the stave, and, while the skin was still smarting, impar to me gems of Jim Crow wisdom. I was never to throw cinders any more.” The tone of this sentence comes off as harsh and negative. Since the tone and diction collide and help each other to balance out the diction used , “smarting, impar, gems,” really emphasizes how badly he was treated by his mom just because he could not defend himself. Later Wright in his essay says, “Whut yuh tryin’ t’do, nigger, get smart?”. Using the word “nigger” is such a negative word. That kind of diction will leave the reader very thunderstruck. Using that kind of tone and diction will make the reader reflect on how Jim Crow laws were actually a thing back then and happened to a lot of people. Continuing on with the essay he says, “You black son-of-a-bitch! You called me pease , then!” Including profanity in the essay really illustrates the awareness of how white people talked to black people black then and how it was okay to do so. With the diction being not blurred and allowing curse words in the essay adds sensitivity to the reader and allows the reader to debrief on how the people were back then. Not being cautious of diction and allowing profanity in a story makes the story even more powerful because Wright does not sugarcoat any …show more content…
Wright ants the reader to be cautious of what happened in the characters childhood and be aware that tragic racist events did happen back then and even now can still occur. “Here my Jim Crow education assumed quite a different form. It was no longer brutally cruel, but subtly cruel. Here I learned to le, to steal, to dissembe. I learned to play that dual role which every Negro must play if he wants to eat and live.” With the lesson that was learned with the Jim Crow laws he was informing the reader that even after all he went through, not standing up for himself got tiring and he learned to play the game by breaking the rules. Wright not only wants to inform but also entertain the reader with facts that actually did
To convey his emotional stress through the essay he uses acerbic diction. “She would smack my rump with the stave, and, while the skin was still smarting, impar to me gems of Jim Crow wisdom. I was never to throw cinders any more.” The tone of this sentence comes off as harsh and negative. Since the tone and diction collide and help each other to balance out the diction used , “smarting, impar, gems,” really emphasizes how badly he was treated by his mom just because he could not defend himself. Later Wright in his essay says, “Whut yuh tryin’ t’do, nigger, get smart?”. Using the word “nigger” is such a negative word. That kind of diction will leave the reader very thunderstruck. Using that kind of tone and diction will make the reader reflect on how Jim Crow laws were actually a thing back then and happened to a lot of people. Continuing on with the essay he says, “You black son-of-a-bitch! You called me pease , then!” Including profanity in the essay really illustrates the awareness of how white people talked to black people black then and how it was okay to do so. With the diction being not blurred and allowing curse words in the essay adds sensitivity to the reader and allows the reader to debrief on how the people were back then. Not being cautious of diction and allowing profanity in a story makes the story even more powerful because Wright does not sugarcoat any …show more content…
Wright ants the reader to be cautious of what happened in the characters childhood and be aware that tragic racist events did happen back then and even now can still occur. “Here my Jim Crow education assumed quite a different form. It was no longer brutally cruel, but subtly cruel. Here I learned to le, to steal, to dissembe. I learned to play that dual role which every Negro must play if he wants to eat and live.” With the lesson that was learned with the Jim Crow laws he was informing the reader that even after all he went through, not standing up for himself got tiring and he learned to play the game by breaking the rules. Wright not only wants to inform but also entertain the reader with facts that actually did