Richard Wright's "The Man Who Was Almost A Man"

Tarvin 1

RICHARD WRIGHT’S “THE MAN WHO WAS ALMOST A MAN”

This handout was prepared by Dr. William Tarvin, a retired professor of literature. Please visit my free website www.tarvinlit.com. Over 500 works of American and British literature are analyzed there for free.

Text used: Ann Charters, ed. The Story and Its Writer, 6th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2003.

1. BEGINNING: Part 1 (Charters 1,427-30). What does Dave want throughout the Beginning scenes of the story, and why does he want it? ______

______

2. Dave gets the money to buy the gun from his mother. Critically examine how the mother is portrayed in this scene where Dave gets the $2 from her. At first, she seems sensible. She tells Dave that the money is for school clothes for Dave: “Ahm keeping tha ______sos yuh kin have ______t go to ______this winter” (1,429). However, when Dave says that she promised he could get a gun—“But yuh ______me one” (1,430), she does not dispute this, instead stating that she can use whatever strategy she wants to get him to work: “Ah don care what Ah ______!” (1,430). Also, she is willing to spend Dave’s money, not on something Dave wants, but on her ______. The gun must be for him: “Ah’ll let yuh git tha gun ef yuh promise me one thing. . . . Yuh bring it straight back t me, yuh hear? It be fer ______” (1,430). From this episode, we seem to learn where Dave picked up his habit of lying and maneuvering, and it makes ironic his mother’s later order to him, “Tell the ______, Dave” (1,433).

3. What is the INCITING MOMENT of the story? What question does the reader ask at this point? The INCITING MOMENT occurs when Dave, having convinced his mother to give him the $2, goes to buy the ______(1,430). We ask, “Will the ______make him be accepted as a man?”

4. MIDDLE: NOTE: Wright indicates the four divisions of the story by leaving an Tarvin 2 extra space between paragraphs, as before the last paragraph on p. 1,430, after the first paragraph on p. 1,433, and after the first paragraph on p. 1,435.

Part 2: The first section of the Middle (1,430-33). Now that Dave has the gun, how does he feel? Dave has “a sense of ______," that "nobody could run over him,” and "they would have to ______him” (1,430-31).

5. In Part 2, complications arise. Having gotten the gun, Dave desires to shoot it. In firing it, what animal does he accidentally shoot (1,432)? Realizing that the gun has gotten him in trouble, what does Dave decide to do (1,432-33)? (1) The mule ______. (2) He decides to ______about how the mule died.

6. Part 3: The second part of the Middle (1,433-35). What is the initial reaction of the whites to Dave’s story about how Jenny died? What secret does Dave’s mother reveal which forces Dave to tell what really happened? What are the consequences? How is this the CLIMAX of the story? Since the wound which killed Jenny could have been made by a plow blade, the whites have no choice but to ______Dave’s story that the ______died when it reared up and fell back on the plow ______. Dave’s father, mother, and brother then come up. His mother mentions the ______which she had given Dave the money to buy: “‘Dave, whut yuh do wid the ______?’ his mother asked” (1,433). Now everyone is convinced that Jenny’s ______was caused by a gunshot. Dave’s ______threatens Dave that he will ______him unless he tells the truth: “Tell whut happened, yuh ______!” (1,433). The white landowner ______promises Dave that nothing will happen to him if he tells the ______(1,433). As Dave confesses, he begins to ______(1,433). He ______to the ground. Instead of going from young manhood up to manhood or adulthood, Dave falls down to ______, driven to ______as a child would. This is the CLIMAX of the story since it answers the question about whether the ______would make Dave be accepted as a ______.

7. How is this also the REVERSAL? Because the ______happens. Instead of the ______making people regard Dave as a ______and respecting him, they ______at him.

8. While he is on the ground, Dave feels his family has betrayed him, because later during the night he says, “N ______had t tell on me” (1,435). How do the members of his family treat him while he is confessing and after he has finished? How is Dave punished? Significantly, neither his father nor his mother nor his brother goes to ______Dave. His father seems more concerned with the white man Tarvin 3

______than with his own suffering ______(1,434). ______immediately breaks his promise that nothing bad would happen to Dave by telling Dave’s father that Dave will have to pay him $______—the price of the dead mule. They agree that Dave will have to work for Hawkins for free for ______years to repay this debt, as Dave later states (1,435).

9. END: Part 4 (1,435-36). Later that night, Dave decides to go dig up the gun and fire it. (1) How is this second time when he shoots the gun different from the first? (2) At the top of the hill, toward what does he point the gun, and why? (3) What does he then decide to jump on? (1) Dave does not close his ______or turn his ______when he fires the gun (1,435).

(2) He points the bulletless ______toward Jim ______“big ______” (1,435), just to scare Hawkins into accepting that “Dave ______is a ______” (1435).

(3) He jumps on a passing ______(1,436).

10. What RECOGNITION comes to Dave at the End of the story? He recognizes that in the community he lives, he will never be treated or respected as a ______. In his own mind, Dave begins to rise: He concludes, “Dave Saunders is a ______” (1,435).

11. Why does Dave decide to run away? There are two conceptions of manhood: (1) An individual himself determines that he is a ______. (2) Society recognizes him as a ______. Dave knows that condition (2) will never occur in the ______community where he lives, so he decides to seek another where he has the possibility of being accepted as a ______.

12. At the End of the story, why may Dave be considered a “man”? Because it takes the intelligence of an ______to see through the racism of ______. It also takes the courage of an ______to seek freedom and escape from this ______. Certainly his ______, who kowtows to such whites as Mr. Hawkins, lacks this courage, as does Dave’s ______, who has let herself become a victim of racial male ______.

13. Who is the PROTAGONIST? Explain. Dave, a ______year-0ld who works as a plowboy on a farm. He lives at home, and although he earns his own ______, he is not allowed to look after it, since it is given to his Tarvin 4

______. Dave is tired of being treated as a “little ______” (1,427). He wants a ______believing that it will make everyone accept him as a ______.

14. Who are the ANTAGONISTS? Explain. List them in the order in which they are introduced in the story.

(1) Other ______(the men Dave works with in the ______).

(2) The whites, such as ______(the owner of the store); Jim ______, the owner of the farm; and those other whites in the field who, along with the black workers, ______at Dave.

(3) His own family. In one of Dave’s mother’s first speeches to him, she compares Dave to an animal: “_____” (1,428). She snatches the ______from his hand, and he almost has to ______to get it back. Before and after dinner, she repeatedly calls him “crazy” (1,428-29), “a ______” (1,428-29), finally saying that she knows he “ain got ______” (1,430). She had previously promised that he could get a gun (1,430), but she ______on her promise. She agrees to give him the money for the gun only if he accepts that the gun is for his ______(1430). His father—his name is ______(1434)—shows almost no affection for his son. He is more concerned about what the white man ______thinks than that his son is the best ______(1,429). Both parents continually threaten Dave. The father has physically ______him before: “He remembered other ______[from his father] and his back quivered” (1,435). Dave feels that both his ______betray him in Part 3. Significantly, Wright gives Dave a ______in the story, but the three times they are together (1,429, 1,433, and 1,435), they never seemingly ______. Thus there appears to be no love or trust in the family.

15. SETTING: In which place does Dave feel most “like a man”? He feels most like a man in the _____; comparing himself to the other field hands, Dave tells his father, “Ah ______mo lan than anybody over there” (1,429). The only one Dave talks to with love and affection is IRONICALLY ______, the mule, his field mate.

16. In which place does he feel most “like a boy”? Dave is treated as a boy when talking to his ______and ______, both of whom should be encouraging their son.

17. In which place does his humiliation occur, and why may humiliation in that place Tarvin 5 cause him to decide to run away? Ironically his humiliation occurs in the ______—the place where he had principally showed himself as a man.

18. What POINT OF VIEW is used in the story? Although Dave does many things which most people would not approve of (such as lying to his parents, shooting the mule through inexperience or carelessness, refusing to accept responsibility for what he has done, etc.), why does the Point of View used make us sympathize with Dave? Third Person Limited Omniscient (the actions and thoughts of ___ character). Everyone sees ______as a fool, but because we can follow his thoughts and his desires, we see him as any normal young _____ who wants to be accepted as an ______.

19. What are the major THEMES of the story? (1) Maturation or the rite of passage of a young ______to manhood. (2) Racism. (3) Alienation.

20. What major SYMBOLISM is used in the story? The ____ is a symbol of manhood.

21. NAMES: What is Dave’s family name, and where in the story do we find out his family name?

(1) Dave ______.

(2) We find out this family name late in the story (1435), exactly at the point when Dave asserts adamantly (in a sense, achieves) his “______.”

22. Surprisingly, a new character is introduced in the last paragraph (1,436). What is the name of this new character? Who is this person? Why is this character introduced so late in the story?

(1) ______.

(2) He is almost certainly not Dave’s younger ______. He may be one of the ______hands who ridiculed Dave in the first paragraph of the story (1427). Mentioning one of these workers in the last paragraph would give a circular structure to the story.