Critical Analysis: “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”
Richard Wright’s “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” is the story of Dave Saunders, a young man’s struggle with life and death; and good and evil. The good is his desire to have a positive life and become a man and the evil is the challenge of having to overcome all the negative factors in life; his family and society. Dave is a seventeen-year-old young man who wants the world to recognize his manhood. Gaining the respect and power so closely associated with manhood is extremely important to Dave since he has never been given the opportunities to be treated as a man. The men who work in the fields with him see him as being young and stupid. Moreover, “nobody ever gave him anything. All he did was work. They treat [him] like a mule...” (Page 282) Dave sees the problem, of his manhood being ignored, as a black-and-white issue; owning a gun will prove he is a man. Most of the people who Dave talks to in the story help to fan the flames of his desire to assert his manhood, by owning a gun, because they treat him l as if he is a little boy. Dave’s desire to own a gun results in him precipitating the disaster of accidentally murdering a mule, and rather than being made to feel like a boy for two additional years while he works to pay
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Whites Dave, Dave Saunders, Dave Life, Wrights Man, dave appears, page 282, owning gun, evident daves,
Approximate Word count = 866
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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