the unknown
Hate, black and thick, blinds and engulfs the mind. Shame pushes him back to the hole from which he crawled. Fear inhibits the mind, body, and soul, rendering the three capable of only bad decisions. In the novel Native Son, by Richard Wright, hate, shame, and fear engulf the livelihood of the main character, Bigger Thomas. Using Bigger and his surroundings, Wright depicts how living under such conditions leads to seeking excesses of sex, religion, violence, and drugs. Furthermore, this lifestyle and its accompanying excesses make it impossible for one to see the sunrise of hope, struggling to break through the black sky. Although Wright's story depicts the life of one man in a very specific time period over fifty years ago, his philosophy of hate, shame, and fear proves equally true in the real world of the past, and in the real world of the present. Fear inhibits the mind, body, and soul like no other emotion can. The study of fear in relation to psychology defines it as the emotional state of the anticipation of danger. How can one lead a healthy life when perpetually anticipating danger? As exemplified in Native Son, and as is true in real life, leading a healthy life while in a constant state of fear proves impossible. Fe
Hope exists only in the real world, not in the dream world provided by the excess usage of drugs, sex, religion, and violence. Therefore, the abuse of these excesses eliminates hope from life. Without hope, what is there to live for? In Hughes poem Junior Addict, he explains how excess drug usage blocks the hope from life- "...a sunrise that he cannot see beginning in some other land- but destined sure to flood- and soon." This bright and shining symbol of hope can exist only for those who look for it. These excesses replace hope and at the same time replace life with death. Drugs remain a plague to the youth that fall into their world, and this problem is as severe as ever. Even I, living a sheltered childhood and attending very good public schools, have felt the affect of drugs and the hope which they wash away. My friend Tony always made trouble when we were young, and when he was thirteen years old, drugs became a dominating part of his life. Even in a good neighborhood, where hope for his future was present and easy to see, drugs engulfed his livelihood, and blocked out everything else. A year after he became involved with drugs, the principal expelled Tony from school, and he ended up dropping out of school for good. Tony had a prosperous life ahead of him, one filled with hope and happiness, and still drugs were able to cloud his priorities and block his vision of his future from v
Some common words found in the essay are:
Junior Addict, African Americans, Native Son, African American, Using Bigger, , Richard Wright, real world, hate shame, hate shame fear, sex religion, shame fear, sex religion violence, religion violence, dream world, Langston Hugh's, excess usage drugs, blocks hope, poem junior, mind body soul, native son, drug world, fear inhibits mind,
Approximate Word count = 942
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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