Richard's Relationship With His Father in Black Boy Essay

Richard comes to terms with his father when he sees him for the first time in twenty-five years. He stood face to face with the man who deserted his family and the father he was constantly reminded of whenever he felt the pain of hunger and emaciation. He finally sees what has become of the man that caused his family so much pain and heartache. His desire to confront his father about the trials and tribulations he, his brother, and his mother endured took an unexpected turn when he was finally looking into his fathers eyes and seeing what he truly was. He came to the realization of who he was, who his father was, and his own strength and perseverance that ultimately brought him back here.

Richards attitude toward his father growing up was unexpressed hatred. Richard longed for a way to show how he felt toward his father without actually verbalizing it. He wanted to show his hate and resentment of his father without punishment. He wanted a victory on a level other than the obvious one. I resented his shouting and it irked me that I could never make him feel my resentment. How could I hit back at him? Oh, yes He had said to kill the kitten and I would kill it! I knew he had not really meant for me to kill the kitten, but my deep hate of him urged me toward a literal acceptance of his word. Wright, 11. Richard found a way to make his resentment felt without his getting in trouble, because if he had gotten into trouble his father wouldve lost his authority and the weight of his words.

After Richards father deserted the family to be with another woman, Richard began associating his pangs of hunger with hate for his father. He blamed his father for his lack of nourishment because his father brought everything home. As the days slid past the image of my father became associated with my pangs of hunger, and whenever I felt hunger I thought of him with a deep biological bitterness. Wright, 16. Because his father left, Richards mother had to find work and leave her two children unattended to do whatever they might stumble upon. Richards fathers left them broke and defenseless.

Richards mother was unable to house her children so she temporarily left them in the care of Mrs. Simon at an orphanage. When Richard runs away and is brought back his mother takes him out because he says he cant stay there. Ella takes him to his fathers house where there on the couch sits Richards father and the woman he had an affair with. They ask for money to go to Richards aunt Maggies but his father and the woman do not take them seriously and laugh at them. I looked at my mother, at the strange woman, at my father, then into the fire. I wanted to take the nickel, but I did not want to take it from my father. Wright, 33. In my opinion, Richard doesnt take the nickel because he doesnt want something from the man who took everything away from him and made him go through such struggles at such a young age. Richard, I feel, is still very resentful toward his father.

Twenty-five years later on a Mississippi plantation when Richard sees his father again, he no longer feels hatred or resentment. He pities his father because he sees what his father really is. A lonely, simple, peasant beaten by the city life Richard was lifted by. A quarter of a century during which my mind and consciousness had become so greatly and violently altered that when I tried to talk to him I realized that, though ties of blood made us kin, though I could see a shadow of my face in his face, though there was an echo of my voice in his voice, we were forever strangers, speaking a different language, living on vastly distant planes of reality. Richard comes to terms with his father when he sees him on that plantation twenty-five years later. He comes to the conclusion that his father is a simple peasant and thats all hell be. He wont ever broaden his horizons or dream of something more. Richard came to terms and forgave his father that day without so much as an apology for the pain caused.