long-suffering blacks victimized by societal and individual white brutality mark the beginning of a
new era in black fiction, and even his least important pieces contain unforgettable scenes and
characters that burn their way into the reader's consciousness (Brignano 20). He would not be a
man in their eyes or his own.
Most of the story focuses on Dave trying to buy a gun so he can become a man. The gun
symbolizes the power Dave is trying to obtain. He will stop at nothing to obtain his manhood. He
talks his mother out of money, which was going to be used to buy clothes for the next school year.
Dave throws his morals aside and cons his mother out of the money by telling her that his father
needs a gun in the house. This action shows how far Dave will go to obtain what he believes will
make him a man. After buying the gun, he then begins his next endeavor. Instead of coming straight
home, he waits to make sure that his parents are in bed to insure no confrontation. Nevertheless,
his mother was prepared and questioned him at bedside. He again lies to her and tells her the gun is
hidden outdoors. Wright then describes in detail what Dave does with the gun. Dave's symbolism
with the gun in evident. He is almost a man. The last test will be firing the weapon and showing his
peers that he is a man.
Wright was one of the first American writers to confront racism and discrimination (Fabre 102).
Through the book Eight Men, which includes this story, Wright alienated impoverished black men
who have been denied freedom and identity by a racially oppressive society, and are driven to
violence as a means of asserting their humanity (Walker 23). The society around which Dave was
living was very harsh towards blacks. Dave's struggle with power and oppression was evident in
his lack of judgement in his actions. His struggle with his self-identity was ruining his life. Much of
Wright's works were written through his own past (Blau B1). He had grown up in the times he was
writing about and expressed his hardships in his fiction. His writing style puts you in the main
characters every thought and action to enable a sense of emotion.
Dave's freedom from the life he had became challenged. Dave became obsessed with the idea that
it was time to be a man and seemed to lose interest in his family. His father had oppressed his
childhood. Plowing a field was more important than school in his father's eyes.
Dave obsession with being a man contained a hidden meaning. It contained a sense of freedom
from his parents, mainly his father. His father had beaten him severely on many occasions and Dave
was afraid the killing of the mule was going to bring another one. He had to run and find himself.
He had to establish his own identity somewhere other than his house. He had failed in front of his
parents, friends, workers, and boss. There was no way he could ever be a man in their eyes after
what he had done. He must regain his self-esteem and to do this he must go somewhere where no
one knows him so he can start over. In his own mind he is a man but must prove it to someone else
for it to be real.
The vocabulary Wright uses gives a deep reality of what it was like to be uneducated and black in
those times. Other authors and critics have questioned the quality of Wright's work. Some critics
held him as a genus in his time while others believed he exaggerated his work (Joyce 66). His use
of vocabulary was shallow and poorly descriptive at times. Emotions would be emphasized
strongly in long descriptive paragraphs. However, dialog between other characters seems short
and hard to understand because of the dialect. Wright seemed to stereotype all blacks to talk and
even think in a flurry of misspelled words and incomplete sentences. It was very hard to even
understand what Wright was trying to say at times while speaking through Dave. Wright was
uneducated while he was young and he lets you know this with his vocabulary.
Wright showed some prejudice in this short story as he did in many others. Wright does not mind
writing with racism because he believed it to be a part of a life in America (Hannon 128). There
were only two white characters in this short story and both seemed to talk down to him. They did
not talk down to him because he was young, but because he was not white. Wright gained a lot of
fame in the early 1900's because of his realistic writings of black oppression by the whites (Fabre
104). The whites in this story wanted him to fail. Mr. Joe laughed in Dave's face when he said he
was almost a man. Mr. Hawkins laughed at Dave when he explained that he had just bought a
dead mule. In this case, Wright made sure he stated in the text that the crowd was black and white
mixed. Mr. Hawkins then persecuted Dave by selling the dead mule to him for fifty dollars, which
bound Dave to him for a long time.
Wright's attitude at the time he was writing his short stories and books played a key role in the
personification of his characters (Joyce 81). Dave was portrayed as an uneducated boy smothered
in the goal of becoming a man. The entire story emphasizes his thoughts on the importance of
becoming a man and proving it to everyone. Dave's mom is portrayed as very caring. She wants
Dave to be safe and tries very hard to convince him in his wrongs. Dave is her favorite son and this
is evident in her actions. Dave's dad is portrayed as a harsh man, fighting for survival in a time when
blacks were unable to better themselves. Wright avoided the confrontation between Dave's mom
and dad on the issue of why she had given Dave the money for the gun. Wright's beliefs in family
are embedded in his writings stemming from his own childhood. The racial point, which is not as
evident but still present, characterizes Wright's earliest works written around 1930 (Brignano 45).
Dave's struggle to become a man was one he thought could be obtained by a simple act of owning
a gun. The Man Who Was Almost a Man was written about all people in their transition from child
to adult. Wright captures his meaning by describing his childhood through Dave. Wright's cunning
use of first person narrative projects a harsh realism of life as a black in the early 1900's. His use of
vocabulary helps define the character's education in the story. Dave's struggle with life is shown
through his bad judgement in thinking a gun will make him a man. Life was hard back then and
being accepted played a big role in all blacks searching for that one thing that would make them
accepted within their society.
Works Cited
Blau, Eleanor. "The Works of Richard Wright, This Time Published as Written." The New York
Times 28 Aug. 1991, final ed., sec. B: 1-2.
Brignano, Russell Carl. An Introduction to the Man and His Works. Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1970.
Fabre, Michel. The World of Richard Wright. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985.
Hannon, Charles. "Teaching the conflicts as a temporary Instructor." College Literature 6 (1997):
126-141.
Joyce, Joyce Ann. Richard Wright's Art of Tragedy. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1986.
Walker, Margaret. Richard Wright, Daemonic Genius: A Portrait of the Man, a Critical Look at
His Work. New York: Warner Books, 1988.
