Richard writes a short story called “The Voodoo of Hell’s
Half-Acre” and persuades the local black paper to print it. His
classmates cannot understand why he has written and published a
story simply because he wanted to do so. Richard’s family is likewise
unreceptive and hostile—Granny and Addie equate literary fiction
with lies, while Ella thinks that Richard’s writing will lead people
to think he has a weak mind and thus will not want to hire him.
The newspaper editor is literally the only person who encourages
him. Wright muses that if he had known then how many obstacles he
would eventually have to overcome to become a writer, he would have abandoned
his quest.
Summary: Chapter 8
The following summer, Richard looks for a job at the local
sawmill, but leaves after one of the workers demonstrates the danger
of sawmill work by showing Richard his right hand, which is missing
three fingers. One morning Richard learns that whites have killed
the brother of one of his black classmates because they thought
he was consorting with a white prostitute in a local hotel where
he worked. The killing burdens Richard’s consciousness even further
with the grim reality and pervasiveness of white oppression.
Richard learns that Uncle Tom thinks his nephew is such
a bad influence on his children that he has instructed his children
to avoid Richard around the house. This realization makes Richard’s
longing for independence stronger than ever. Alan, Richard’s brother,
soon visits the family, and much to Richard’s dismay his brother
quickly adopts the family’s critical attitude toward him.
Richard is named valedictorian of his class, but he discovers
that the principal will not let him give his own speech at the ceremony. Because
white people will be present at the graduation, the principal has
written a speech of his own, which he instructs Richard to deliver.
The principal threatens to keep Richard from graduating if he insists
on giving a different speech. Richard’s family, friends, and classmates
all urge him to avoid trouble and just deliver the principal’s speech,
but he adamantly refuses.
When the day of graduation arrives, Richard gives his
own speech and immediately flees the auditorium, paying no attention
to the applause, to the handshakes, to the invitations to parties
that he receives. He is disgusted with the community, the event,
and with the fact that he lived his life for seventeen years in
a baffled state. Wright muses that at this point he finally resolved
to put this baffled living behind him and “faced the world in 1925.”
Analysis: Chapters 6–8
However sassy Uncle Tom may regard Richard’s comments
on the accuracy of the clock to be, the violence of Tom’s reaction
far exceeds rational bounds and is difficult to comprehend. We might think
that Richard should expect this sort of behavior from adult men,
given that he has a history of traumatic relationships with nearly
every man in his family. The examples are numerous: Richard’s sullen
and prickly grandfather, his uncle Hoskins’s disastrous river-crossing
prank, his father’s alarmingly remorseless abandonment of the family,
the fear of a dead boy’s ghost that pervades his uncle Clark’s house,
and the close association of his pseudo-uncle the “Professor”—with
whom Maggie goes north—with the murder of a white person. Adding
to this problematic series of male family relationships is the fact
that the women in Richard’s life are all either ill or fanatically
religious. It is understandable, then, that Richard feels so withdrawn
and isolated. In this light, it seems extremely fortunate that his
spirit is strong enough to champion such independence and adhere
to the standards that guide his actions.
