The Fight

The Fight


Richard Wright was born on September,4,1908 on Rucker plantation in Mississippi. He was the first born son of two. While in his younger years he moved around a lot was forced to live with other family members , and was also a orphan in 1917 for several mouths because of his mother had suffered a illness which they were later reunited and they both moved with his Aunt and Uncle for a while later on his Uncle was murdered and they left in fear to West Helena Mississippi where they were living in rent rooms, but later returned to Jackson Mississippi.Mrs. Wright suffered a stroke, causing further family disintegration. Wright reluctantly chose to live with his Uncle Clark and Aunt Jody in Greenwood, Mississippi, where he could be near his mother, but restrictions placed on him by his aunt and uncle became too much for the boy. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Wright was permitted to return to Jackson, to live with his Grandmother Wilson. Richard Wright still managed to excelled in grade school and was made class valedictorian of Smith Robertson junior high school.At the age of fifteen, Wright penned his first story, "The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre". It was published in Southern Register, a local black newspaper. In 1923, Wright excelled in grade school and was made class valedictorian of Smith Robertson junior high school. Determined not to be called an Uncle Tom, he refused to deliver the assistant principal's carefully prepared valedictory address that would not offend the white school officials and finally convinced the black administrators to let him read a compromised version of what he had written. In September of the same year, Wright registered for mathematics, English, and history courses at the new Lanier High School in Jackson, but had to stop attending classes after a few weeks of irregular attendance because he needed to earn money for family expenses. His childhood in Memphis and Mississippi shaped his lasting impressions of American racism.

In Richard Wright's "The Fight" narrator's reaction was that he was out to show that he wasn't a punk and if anything was to happen to him, He knew how to take care of himself and if anything thing else failed he knew how to fight. He saw fighting his only opinion to make friends in this new school. This wasn't a great idea to make friends. I think that he should have gone about a different way instead of fighting because he could have ignored him and walked away from the issue which would have made the other kid look stupid and the narrator look like the bigger person. The way I would have hold the issue would have been different more less I would have thought the out come of the matter was that the kids just wanted to see a show from the way thing where looking I would just ignored him and walked away with a smile on face to make the bully look stupid and just pretty much minded my own business , instead of trying to be someone I'm not .

I can say I've been in this position before when I just moved to New York city from south Carolina and when I was in middle school, Many of people I hang out with teased me about the way I spoke and how I'd dressed and I thought that I never be teased to the point where I had to use violence to solve my problems in school until one day I grow tried of being teased about where I'm from and people processed to look me. So I took it upon myself if anyone had spoke about me differently "we were going fight!!!". The way the narrator acted in the story "The Fight" seemed very natural for someone to act that way to fit in a new area or surroundings from the quote This was my test. If I failed now, I would have failed at school, for the first trial came not in books but in how one's fellows took one, what value they placed upon one's willingness to fight". From this give the narrator the thought to act in this matter, this wasn't the greatest thing to do why because it made him feel that if he fight he would become someone not too miss with in his new school .


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