1180 Wright, Richard
being” (ll. 109–111). For a romantic poet like
Wordsworth, the benefits of industrialization can
never outweigh its costs, as that price is extracted
from the most fundamental aspects of our human-
ity. In returning to nature and feeling its rhythms,
he feels he obtains a purer spirit that can compre-
hend the mystery of life and that can sustain him
even when he is amid the city’s clutter.
Despite his apparent openness to learn from
nature, Wordsworth admits that he has not always
been a good pupil. Even as he muses on the myste-
rious living joy of the natural world, he writes that
when he first encountered nature, he did so as a
man fleeing the evils of urban life and not primarily
appreciating the beauty he was to experience. Now,
however, Wordsworth claims, “I have learned / To
look on nature, not as in the hour / Of thought-
less youth” (ll. 88–90). In the instant of writing the
poem, he says, “I dare to hope, / Though changed, no
doubt, from what I was when first / I came among
these hills” that “in this moment there is life and
food / For future years” (ll. 64–67). He knows that
the lessons he has finally learned from nature will
continue to change him for years to come and will
give his life more reason.
Wordsworth concludes the poem by address-
ing his sister, Dorothy. He asks her to remember
the lessons she has learned from nature as the wild
ecstasies of her youth mature into a more sober
pleasure in the years to come after his death. He
looks forward to his own death as the final stage
of life as we know it, and he does so with comfort,
knowing that Dorothy will continue to remember
him and that according to the stages inherent in
nature itself, he can expect after dying to “become a
living soul; / While with an eye made quiet by the
power / of harmony, and the deep power of joy, / We
see into the life of things” (ll. 46–49). This implies a
different stage of elevated consciousness quite unlike
the earlier one that could not grasp the “heavy and
weary weight / Of all this unintelligible world” of
our present existence (ll. 39–40). Hence, the poem
speaks of the stages of life from youth to maturity
to death and life beyond the grave as being demon-
strated by the changes of the natural world’s seasons,
and it urges us to reject the artificial and destructive
pace of urban life for the gradual growth in tranquil
comprehension of our place in the world that nature
alone can teach.
Kelly MacPhailwriGHT, riCHarD Black Boy
(1945)
Black Boy, by Richard Wright (1908–60), is an
autobiography covering the author’s life from early
childhood to late teens, time spent mainly in Jack-
son, Mississippi, and, for shorter periods, in Arkan-
sas and Memphis. The book ends with the young
adult Wright about to embark on a journey north to
Chicago. The book was originally the first part of a
longer unpublished work entitled American Hunger,
which Wright divided into two sections: “Southern
Night,” describing his childhood in the South, and
“The Horror and the Glory,” depicting his time in
Chicago. The Library of America publishes this
complete edition as Black Boy (American Hunger).
In Black Boy, Wright depicts his experiences of
poverty, hunger, orphanage, racism, and religious
indoctrination, as well as the frequently turbulent
relationships he endured with adult authority fig-
ures. The permanent absence of his father and the
long-term illness of his mother left a parental
vacuum filled by numerous individuals who sought
to exert control over Wright, including an ardently
religious grandmother, and various aunts and uncles.
Denied a continuous education, Wright lived a
life whose story represents tenacity in the face of
long odds. From virtual illiteracy, Wright’s ascent to
becoming a best-selling author was nothing short of
miraculous.
Kaleem Ashrafrace in Black Boy
In Black Boy, Richard Wright explains his naive
early childhood understanding about matters of
race. Knowing who was white or black, or even
that these groups were segregated, were illogical
concepts for a boy surrounded by ostensibly “white”
family members (such as his grandmother and
Aunt Jody). So, upon hearing that a white man had
beaten a black boy, Wright assumed that the white
man had to have been the black boy’s father (he only
knew that fathers “whipped” their sons). In time,